My kids and I like to go into D.C. often for the Smithsonian museums. We especially like the Museum of American History.
We whip through the Star-Spangled Banner exhibit first and then go to the basement. They like to hang out in the Spark! Lab science and activity area and I like to stare longingly at Julia Child’s kitchen.
They have her entire kitchen, down to the phone books and every last copper saucier. Something about her kitchen reminds me of my granny’s, except Granny didn’t have so many $400 pots.
The stove is a plain and modest by today’s standards and something no self-respecting Top Chef would be caught dead sautéing on.
This week we instead of American History we are going to a farmers’ market for lunch and produce shopping and then the girls want to go to the Spy Museum.
I’d like to go scope it out before my dad comes to town. He was in military intelligence, so the Spy Museum is a must-see for him.
In my home town all the waitresses are Russian or Polish. He drops a little Russian chit-chat on them and always gets premium service. Which is surprising, if you think about why he knows Russian.
Normally, when we go into D.C. we park at an outlying Metro station and take the train. I’d like the mobility of my car on this trip, but parking in Washington, D.C. is usually such a nightmare, and expensive. We’ll see.
After surveilling the Spy Museum website, I saw a recent tweet that said to message the word “MIDNIGHT” to the number 64444.
Within a minute, I received a discount code (AGENT) good for $5 off Spy Museum admission and 15% off in the gift shop. A handy bit of intel!
There is also a little cryptography puzzle on the site.
I noticed on the first page that some of the letters in the banner were darker than others.
I hovered over the little question mark and followed the direction to a place where I could enter my discovered codes.
Click on the other headers (Visit, Explore, Learn, etc.) on the site to find the other code words in order.
Enter them all in the form and submit for a discount code! The payoff is small, so do it for the joy of solving the puzzle and for cool points with your kids.
After our trip I hope to have more pictures for you and details about where to park, eat and survive the heat in Washington, D.C. in July!
What’s you favorite thing to do in D.C.? Favorite restaurant or museum?
Our favorite thing to do in DC is to walk the Mall at night. Fewer crowds, cooler temperatures, and it’s just so beautiful. The Korean War Memorial is especially haunting at night. Beautiful!
Another favorite has to be the Library of Congress. Best time we had touring that beautiful building was 15 min. before closing on a weekday night. NO ONE was still in the building. We flew through, oooing and ahhhing. Fun times!
We go a lot during the off-season.
September and October tend to be good because schools haven’t planned their field trips yet.
Mondays are bad. Fridays are good, unless we leave to go home the same time everyone else is leaving D.C. for the weekend.
Um, I used the word “beautiful” numerous times in that post. Where is my thesaurus? must.have.more.coffee….
It can’t be helped. D.C. is plain BEAUTIFUL.
I’m not grading for style anyway.
I love just walking the mall. I love D.C. Many fond memories of my youth were made in that beautiful city.
July is kind of a bad time to go, because it is so hot and humid. I love fall in the city.
I LOVE D.C.!! I have only been once (so far) but it was great! My favorite thing to visit is the National Mall, I love the exhibits, the Korean War one was my favorite. As for restaurants I have no idea of the name of it but it was a quaint German restaurant that was in a house. And we at in the basement of the Ronald Reagan Building, it was like a food court but incredibly cool. I hope you have a great time in D.C. Can’t wait for the pics!
Jen =)
Was it the Cafe Berlin?
http://www.goindie.com/assets/images/user_images/2011/1/26/2011012600055237.jpg
Oh an Union Station was cool too, don’t know if kids would like it though.
We typically eat in whatever Smithsonian museum we visit or at the Old Post Office Pavilion, but we’ll make sure to check out Union Station sometime!
I would love to get a chance to make a trip to DC someday as an adult. I have some vague memories from my childhood of cherry blossom (or was it Dog Wood?), but it would be such a fun trip.
Dogwoods are the state tree of VA, but D.C. has the cherry blossom festival every spring. It’s very beautiful, but we never go then because of the crowds.
We really enjoyed the Spy Museum, very much.
I could spend days, quite literally, at the National Gallery of Art.
Loved my visit to Arlington, believe it or not.
Love the Lincoln Memorial and the WWII Memorial, and the White House and the Capitol building and the White House and gosh…there wasn’t much that I didn’t love.
Susan, you’ve been more places than I have!
That sounds like such a fun day! I love that you can go to DC to look at their amazing museums whenever you want.
We try to go frequently. Not so much in the spring and summer, but a ton in the fall and winter. We spend every Thanksgiving in D.C.
I love DC, so many memories of visiting NYC as a kid, only a couple of DC.
Love my museums and would happily live in DC 🙂
I would live there if I had a lot of money, lived in one of the sections where you can walk to everything, and was near a Metro station.
I would not want to have to drive for everything everyday. Although I think the Interstate there is less stressful than in Atlanta.
We went to DC for our 25th wedding anniversary. LOVED it! We took in as many of the Smithsonian museums as we could, but the SPT museum had to be my all time favorite. Except for participating in that stupid spy game we got roped into. Normally the cost is $25 p/p but they let us do it for free so two other people who had paid for it would have someone to play with. It was a big waste of time in my opinion and took away from spending time in the actual museum. This is one I tell everyone to go to. I also hear that the newspaper museum is also excellent.
Thanks for that tip! It sounds like something I might pay for, in the name of education. I’ll make sure to read more about it before we go.