We arrived in Washington, D.C. with Jono and Maria and parked 4 miles from the National Mall. This street parking was free and was right next to a park with public restrooms and recreational fields. When we got there, we explored the park and let Maria’s dog, Lucy, run around and play with her soccer ball.

When we visited the National Mall the following day, we didn’t really have a plan and didn’t realize how much walking would be involved. We started at one end of the mall at the US Capitol Building.

The Capitol Building’s design was personally selected by President George Washington in 1793 and it’s construction was started shortly thereafter. It has housed the meeting chambers of the Senate and the House of Representatives for over two centuries. It has been built, burned, rebuilt, extended, and restored over all that time and stands as a monument to the American people.

The US Supreme Court Building was our next stop. The physical construction of this building began in 1932 and was completed in 1935. The federal courthouse was designed by Cass Gilbert, who was a well-known architect and friend to Chief Justice Taft.

The West facade is made of Vermont marble, the inner courtyard is made from Georgia marble, and the interior is made from Spanish marble. For the courtroom’s 24 columns, Gilbert felt that only the ivory and golden marble from the Montarrenti quarries near Siena, Italy would suffice. In May 1933, he petitioned the Italian Premier, Benito Mussolini, to guarantee that the Siena quarries sent nothing inferior to the official sample marble.

Next we stopped at the Library of Congress & Fountain of Neptune. Established 219 years ago on April 24, 1800, the LOC is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress. Inside the library are more than 38m books, 3.6m recordings, 14m photographs, 5.5m maps, 8.1m pieces of sheet music, 70m manuscripts, 5,711 incunabula, and 122,810,430 items in the nonclassified collections: more than 167 million total items.

The US Botanic Garden was our next stop. In addition to the large collection of plants and climate controlled rooms in this enormous greenhouse, there were models of the landmarks of DC made from various types of wood, twigs, vines, tree nuts, seeds, bark, and dry leaves.

Each model was made from all sorts of plant material like acorns, vines, bark, string, twigs, pine cones, etc. Featured in our photos are The US Capitol, The Supreme Court, The White House, and The Lincoln Memorial.

After the Botanic Garden, we walked next door to the National Museum of the American Indian. It was a very large museum filled with thousands of artifacts originating from as early as the 1300s.

There were countless installations and documentaries that educate visitors on the true history of the American Indian and their relationship with the US. Some of the videos that we watched celebrated the resilience of the tribes and their traditions, showcasing the staying power of the people and their way of life. Other videos showed the ugliest sides of colonization, including the mass killing and migration of these peaceful native people and the Trail of Tears.

The museum was very informative and extensive. I wish we had more time to explore it, but we didn’t plan out our day and ended up leaving the museum as it was closing at 4pm. We had a late lunch from a food truck parked nearby and ate on the patio of the museum. Then we went home to rest our legs and plan our next adventure at the National Mall.