Snow Day

Wow...believe it or not, I start my third trimester tomorrow!  Where does the time go?  April seems like a long ways off, but, when I start counting in pregnancy weeks, it gets a LOT closer.  Only 13 more weeks.  Again...wow.

Our basement project has turned a corner.  We have one bedroom painted, the walls in the other are nearly done, and we've gotten to the point of looking at bedroom furniture and carpet, neither of which we can actually order until the walls are done.  We'd hate to have the furniture arrive and not have anywhere to put it.  The bunk beds left for their new home on New Year's Eve, so the kids are now sleeping on mattresses on the floor.

I surely will be glad when they have their own rooms again, even if those rooms are in the basement!

Anyway, back to Washington DC!

It was snowing on Friday night when we went to bed, and the forecast was calling for two feet of snow.  But these facts still did not prepare us for the sight out our hotel window when we woke up on Saturday morning!  There was a bunch of snow on the ground and bunch still coming down.  We flipped on the TV and were greeted with closing after closing.  Some things were even closing on Sunday already.  Uh-oh.

Nevertheless, I called Ford's Theatre, the sight we had planned tour this particular morning, and, to my great surprise, someone answered and said that the Theatre would be opening, and, as soon as enough park rangers arrived, they would be good to go.  So, we grabbed a quick breakfast, walked to the subway station, and motored off toward the Theatre.

A word about the subway...the DC metro runs commuter train lines both above and below the ground.  The underground trains were running, but the above-ground ones were not.  Fortunately for us, we were staying in the area covered by the underground.  None of the buses were running, and the streets were covered with snow.  The sidewalks were nowhere near clear, so people walked on the streets.  At least, those few nutty people that were actually out in the snow!  It was pretty crazy.

We arrived at Ford's Theatre in plenty of time to pick up our free tickets, as there were only about 25 people who had even attempted to visit anywhere in the weather.  Our ticket gained us admittance to a surprisingly good Lincoln museum in the basement of the theatre, a ranger talk about Lincoln's assassination in the actual theatre where the President was shot, and to the Peterson House across the street where Lincoln was taken to die.

We spent about 45 minutes in the museum.  There was a bunch of information about Lincoln's childhood, political career, life in the White House, and, of course, his assassination.  There were also many life-sized statues about of Lincoln and the conspirators who murdered him.  We were also treated to a bunch of amazing artifacts and memorabilia, including the gun that shot Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth's boot that was cut off him when he sought treatment for his leg injured in his jump from the theatre balcony, and lots of letters and personal items of Lincoln's.  We enjoyed it a lot more than we expected to!

 

  

After the museum, we took seats in the still-working Ford's Theatre for a ranger talk about Lincoln's assassination.  While the performances over the weekend were canceled, the stage was set for the current show, A Christmas Carol.  That might have been fun to watch!

Anyway, we learned more about Lincoln's assassination that that 30-minute talk than I ever learned in school.  What a sad, unnecessary event.  After the talk, we were allowed to go up the fateful box, which was set up exactly as it would have been that night.

 

After the Theatre, we would have ordinarily crossed the street right away to see the Peterson House.  However, the ranger had informed us that not yet enough people had arrived to open it, so we needed to come back around 1:00.  So, since it was close to lunch time, we decided to grab a bite to eat somewhere close and then come back.

Ha!  This was easier said than done!  Every single restaurant we passed, including the McDonald's and Subway, were closed up tight.  The ONLY restaurant we found that was actually open was the nearby Hard Rock Cafe.  We had not really wanted to eat somewhere that touristy and expensive for lunch, but we didn't have a choice.  The Hard Rock it was, which the kids loved and Jeff and I ended up not minding.  After all, it does have pretty decent food!

During lunch, we ascertained that the only other sight of interest to us open in the city was the White House Visitor Center.  We were a bit chagrined, as we had hoped to visit one or two of the Smithsonian museums or the International Spy Museum that afternoon, but what do you do?  The snow was falling harder than ever, and most people had made the wise decision to stay home!

So, we headed back to the Peterson House, where we were able to see where Lincoln died.  And we made it in the nick of time.  The nice man who was keeping it open had been told on his walkie-talkie right as we arrived to "shut it down as soon as  possible."

"You're lucky," he informed us.  "You'll be the last ones to see it today!"

 

If you ever get a chance to see Ford's Theatre, don't miss it!  It's a great place.

After the Theatre, we chugged through the snow over to the White House Visitor's Center.  As it is so difficult to get tickets to actually see the White House, this is sort of the consolation prize, another very well-done museum that describes life in the White House through the ages.  Again, it's much more interesting than it sounds!

However, we arrived at this place in the nick of time, as it was closing at 2:30.  We had about 20 minutes to look around and decide that we wanted to come back later when the gift shop was manned, as it had some great books about the presidents that I thought I could use in school.

After that, it was back to the hotel, as absolutely nothing else was open, and the snow continued to fall.  We had bought a deck of cards at the nearby CVS, so we spent the rest of the afternoon napping, watching TV, and playing cards.  I also called my brother to see if we could  possibly have family Christmas the following day on Sunday, as many things were closing again and it would be much less rushed than trying to do it on the day of his graduation.  He and my other brother were agreeable, so we had a good plan for the next snowy day.

That evening, we found a nearby Mexican restaurant that was actually open, bundled up, and enjoyed a good meal.  Then, it was back to bed with high hopes that the next couple of days would see clearer streets and open attractions!