Category: The Seattle Times

When court’s not in session, you can sit in the actual Supreme Court courtroom for a 30-minute intro to the court, the justices, and the architecture of the building. Just line up in the lobby, easy peasy. Security is weird about photos: you can take pictures standing at the doorway of the courtroom, but not…

Jamestown, est. 1607. First permanent English colony, home of Pocahontas… and it’s now an active archeological site. The original James Fort had been abandoned, overgrown and thought lost to erosion until archeologists found it again in 1994. They’ve been digging up artifacts since. We got to watch archeologists at work, and they even let kids…

Unpopular opinion: the Air & Space Museum on the National Mall is… meh. The exhibits are nice, sure, but it was SO PACKED in there it was muggy inside from all the people bodies squished together. Ew. The Udvar-Hazy Air & and Space Museum by Dulles, on the other hand, was AMAZING. The second we…

The evening before we went to Monticello, we bumped into a family at the hotel pool that had gone to Monticello that day. The dad told me, “Hey, Madison’s house is on the way, and Monroe’s house is right next to Monticello.” Wait, WHAT. That smelled like a giant marketing opportunity to me. The third,…

I knew I wanted to see Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello; I did not know it would take two hours of driving on little country roads in rural Virginia. But, worth it. Monticello, which Jefferson designed himself, is filled with natural light. Big windows, skylights, mirrors everywhere. Absolutely gorgeous.

I am so glad we got another chance to see the giant pandas at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo. In November, Tian Tian, Mei Xiang, and their cub Xiao Qi Ji, are all returning to China.

The Smithsonian museums on the National Mall are always PACKED, but just a few blocks away, it was nice and chill at the National Portrait Gallery/American Art Museum. Half the building is American Art, the other half is portraits. We went to visit our favorite presidential portraits, and had time to explore the third floor.…

Four killer views of Washington, D.C., from 500 feet up. The Washington Monument is actually 555 feet and 5 1/8 inches tall, making it the world’s tallest structure when it was completed in 1884. Tickets to the observation deck are VERY limited because it’s a tiny space. The trick to snagging tickets is to log…

Crossed off a big bucket list item today: took the kids on a White House tour! Been wanting to do this for years. We didn’t see the president, but the Secret Service confirmed he was there. Pictures off my phone because they are STRICT about what you can bring in (nothing). To get a White…

That view of Mount Rainier gets me every time.