Monday, February 14, 2011

LAND OF THE FREE!

And home of the brave (this has a whole new meaning to Chelcie now. Ask her about it.)

Well, friends, let me tell you first about the megabus...
-it is super cheap
-it has wifi
-it has plugs
-they play movies
Why wouldn't you want to hop on and catch a ride to the Nation's capital for only a few bucks?! Check out the tweets tagged "megabusmegafun" for more details.

We arrived in DC at approximately 7:50 am and hit the town running after a quick, rejuvenating teeth brushing and face washing in the public restroom of the Double Tree. Let me tell you, we looked good as we ran this town. I'm pretty sure we saw everything there is to see in the first day alone. We walked at least 26 miles (according to Chelc... and she can't be far off), and took the most roundabout ways possible to every sight. Who knew that in actuality they're all pretty close if you don't take the longest way possible? But don't worry, by the next day we had this city down to a T.

We were really good at reading the map and knowing exactly where we were.
We started off by going to the Capitol because it looked really close. Optical illusion for sure.

Then we walked to the Washington Monument and hit up some museums on the way- Smithsonian Museum of Natural History and the Holocaust Museum.

The Hope Diamond (It's Valentine's Day boys, and we want this.)
The only time we took the Metro was to Georgetown where we ate some lunch and shopped. We saw Georgetown Cupcakes (D.C. Cupcakes on TLC) and the line was ridiculous so we sadly decided it wasn't worth it.

Eventually we made it back to our hotel and some sweet friends of ours came to visit because thanks to Twitter we realized that they were in DC too! We hung out with them in our hotel and watched the UT game while they told us what else we needed to see while we were there. T Mo was so kind as to drive us in groups to a local pizza place for dinner. He took the first round of girls and then came back for us. As we were commenting on the amount of honking that goes on on the streets, this lady neglected to yield while turning left on green and drove right into us! Sorry, T Mo that you had to deal with that nonsense! Just added a little adventure to our overall big adventure!

The next morning, Chelcie had the brilliant idea of DC Cupcakes for breakfast! We got there about 30 minutes before they opened and got right in once they did open the doors. When traveling in a pack of ten, it makes it difficult to pile into small stores/restaurants... so we decided to keep our cupcakes and eat them as dessert once we made it to lunch.

On our way to lunch we stopped to see where Obama resides. As we were approaching, Jessie announced that we were headed toward the back of The White House, but once we got there we realized it was, indeed, the front. We took lots of pictures and somehow escaped getting in trouble (Jessie). Only later to realize Jessie was right and we just had a bunch of picture of the back of the house. Wow.

By this time we were so tired of walking that some of our group hopped in a cab and left the rest of us to fend for ourselves. We finally all made it to the restaurant we had been looking for and it was closed so we settled in at a little taproom. Heads up, folks, people in Washington do NOT like to separate your checks for you so come prepared. We enjoyed a great lunch and amazing cupcakes. In the words of Jen, "I've never not wanted something to end so badly."

Next we traveled to the Lincoln Memorial- very memorable to all of us, especially Chelcie.


Next we saw the war memorials, and then went to the Smithsonian Museum of American History. After that it was time to head back to the hotel. We grabbed some dinner at the Old Ebbitt Grill- it was really nice and very yummy. Then went back to the Double Tree to utilize their public restroom again so we could get ready for bed before getting back on the megabus. We figured we could walk just a few more miles since we were about to be on a bus all night so we headed out on foot to the megabus stop. We made it to where we thought it was, but we couldn't find it and only had 15 minutes to get there so we decided we needed to find taxis. Four girls got in one taxi while Becca Jones, Chelcie, Jen, and I continued on foot ending up practically in the front lawn of The White House. The security guard had to direct us out of the gate to the sidewalk. We were on the verge of panic at this point, power-walking to try and find a cab. We found one with 7 minutes left to reach our destination before the bus departed. We got there just in time and even though the bus driver somehow thought we were scamming him, we were allowed on the bus and arrived back home at 5:30 am.

The trip was a blast, and I can't wait to take advantage of this megabus more often! I had so much fun, thanks for the great idea Becca!

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