~Washington, DC~

After we left Ohio we headed to Maryland - State # 20.  We had a good drive there and stayed at a great park with incredible trees with beautiful fall colours, and close to downtown (Thx Goldens!) The park advised us to be careful of the chiggers and ticks!!!  This freaked us all out and we walked everywhere with our hoodies up and were careful not to step in the millions of leaves!!!!!  We didn't have any "issues", however we did speak with a man while we were there and he definitely had "chiggers itch" and couldn't stop scratching his head !! Shame!!!  

We drove into WA DC for the day and easily found a parking on the National Mall.  It was very cold but at least it wasn't raining.   WA DC has SO much history - they have many monuments from across the centuries that tell of the ideals that gave birth to their government "of the people, by the people, for the people..."

We started at the George Washington Monument - incredible.

This is the World War 2 Memorial.

This is looking down the Reflection Pool towards the Lincoln Memorial.

Everything is so HUGE in DC.  We are standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Many of the buildings have these large, beautiful columns.

Abraham Lincoln - this is also a HUGE statue of him.

The White House - we tried our hardest to try and get a glimpse of the President - no luck!

We walked all along the National Mall and ended up at the US Capitol.

Afterwards we stopped in at the US Botanic Gardens - just beautiful.

They had statues of all the important DC landmarks among the plants and flowers. Very cool.

Along the Mall are many government buildings and  beautiful museums.  The museums are all FREE to visit.

We chose to visit the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.  Once again it was very large and had LOTS of incredible things to see.

This is the Thomas Jefferson Memorial overlooking the Tidal Basin.

This is the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial.

While walking through the lovely Constitution Gardens we saw the "Signers of the Declaration of Independence Memorial".

These are some of the statues at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial.

WOW - what a great day - but I must admit .......our brains are on overload. After having learned so much Canadian history while visiting eastern Canada we are now getting a bit overwhelmed by all of this American history!!!