Adventurers and Lil Adventurers Part 2

Last week it was the Washington Monument. I had never been there, and it was really neat. Well worth getting tickets. The tickets are free, but there's a $1 a ticket charge to get them online instead of getting in line for them at 8 am. Well worth it, IMHO! We also went on to a brief visit at the WWII Memorial. This was a new monument to me and all I can say is that it was amazing in a way that the pictures don't capture. I thought it would be nice, but it was fabulous. Also, Choclo thought the fountains were a birthday cake.

This week it was the Archives. I knew from last year that this would not be a great place for Choclo and Oob: dimly lit documents are not their thing! They have so much stuff for older kids, though, the other Adventurers loved it! They got a mini course in geneaology and how to research primary documents. Looking at it, that doesn't sound fun, but every kid was riveted. You can access a lot of it at their Digital Vaults.



I knew better than to take Choclo and Oob to the Archives, so how did this work? My Shotgun Buddy took the Adventurers and I took the Lil Adventurers. Specifically, I took them to stomp in puddles on the National Mall. It was a day of intermittent torrential rain. I had enough foresight to put the Lil guys in rain gear and to wear my big Wellies.

The National Mall is grass surrounded by coarse sand paths, and the the big sandy puddles made quite a fascinating sensory experience.

The Lil guys got wetter than fish (and some odd looks), but had a wonderful time!

We also took a detour through the sculpture gardens and stopped to smell the flowers.

Providence was kind enough to have it not rain the entire two hours we were there. About the time we all met back at Blue Streak, the first drops were falling again, and it very shortly became a downpour fierce enough that you couldn't hear anything except the rain pounding on the car. A perfect day!