I was hoping the rain last night had met our quota for this trip, but that was not to be. This morning was very wet — though I can’t really complain, since none of us found puddles or got splashed. We went back to Open City for breakfast, then took the Metro back to touristland. We got Capitol tour tickets for mid-afternoon, then went back to the Botanic Garden to dry off and look around — the Botanic Garden was probably the tourism find of the trip for us.
We decided to go to Ollie’s Trolley for lunch (Metro daypasses are a mixed blessing, I guess). The Ollieburgers weren’t as good as either Diane or I remembered them as having been when we had them at Lums in Florida, but they were OK — and the line was short. Unfortunately, the restaurant lost its water supply while we were eating, so we had to go across the street to Barnes and Noble to find working bathrooms.
Then we returned to Capitol Hill and visited the Supreme Court. There had been long lines there earlier in the morning because the Justices were hearing oral arguments, but there wasn’t an afternoon session, so we didn’t have to wait. We looked around and stayed for a courtroom lecture at 1:30 — while we were waiting in line, we saw some friends from Shir Hadash, much to everyone’s surprise. The lecture was interesting; I do wish we’d been able to sit closer to the front so we could have seen the friezes on all four sides of the courtroom.
The rain stopped while we were in the Supreme Court, which made it far more pleasant to walk over to the Capitol for our tour. We hadn’t made arrangements in advance for a staff-led tour or gallery passes, so we just did the “regular” tour; it was good, though it was difficult to hear the guide at times. Next time, I’ll plan farther ahead (it’s not as though we didn’t know we were coming to Washington months ago!).
Jeff wanted to go back to Air and Space; Diane and I didn’t. So we dropped him off and wandered over to the Hirshhorn to be bewildered by some of the art (at least I was). I like some modern art. But there’s a lot where I wonder why I’m not included in the joke, because it can’t be real — and the Hirshhorn had more than its share of that type. Canvasses in shades of white just don’t do it for me, I’m afraid.
We had less than an hour before the museum closed, which was actually enough for me; then we rejoined Jeff and did two geocaches on our way back to the Metro. We got off at Dupont Circle again, and this time ended up at Thaiphoon, which we enjoyed. Jeff went for the fully-spiced version of Drunken Noodles and seemed to like it (and, of course, he couldn’t cut the spice with a beer!).
After dinner, we stopped at a cache around the corner from the restaurant, then stopped at Larry’s Ice Cream (good, but the portions were pretty small for the price, though probably adequate for the tenth day of a vacation). Before returning to the Metro and our hotel, we found one last cache for the evening.
Tomorrow, we only have a few hours in DC before we have to head for the airport. I had originally thought about taking Jeff to see Georgetown University, but their tour schedule doesn’t quite fit our flight plans, so we’ll do something else instead. There’s at least one cache at the National Zoo….