A day downtown...

Supposedly, it was going to rain for a lot of the day today (as it happened, it didn't), so we planned something which could be indoors if necessary - a trip to downtown DC.  We drove in, as it's a lot cheaper than taking the Metro (which, unlike the London Underground, doesn't have a child fare, so it's really expensive to use as a family) and parked in one of the garages near the Mall - ended up only paying $11 for a day's parking, which is a big savings on the $40 or so it would have cost to take Metro. 

We decided to go to the American history museum, as it's been redone in the past few years and we only saw a little of it last time we were here. Rain plan would have been to then go to the Natural History Museum, but as it wasn't raining, 

we walked over to the old Post Office Pavilion, had some lunch, and went up the tower - quite a good view from there, as it happens, and it was free to go up. 

This is the Old Post Office building - kind of cool. 

Right across the street from a bar/pub/restaurant called Elephant & Castle, which made us all laugh.

Then we walked down Pennsylvania Avenue to a somewhat familiar address...

and walked back across the Mall towards the tidal basin and 

the Jefferson Memorial.  We considered going on the boats, but it was actually quite hot and you can only put four people in a boat and there were five of us, so we didn't. We did, however, walk around to the Jefferson Memorial - a nice breeze across the tidal basin helped - 

and then back to the carpark (or rather, Alex, Olivia and I did, while Sarah and Grandma waited in the shade - it was pretty hot in the sun by this point, though by DC summer standards, not too bad).

Olivia and I tried to do one of those photos where it looks like you are holding or crushing a landmark in the distance, but it was so sunny I had a hard time seeing my viewscreen so it didn't quite work. Cute photo anyway, though, I thought!  Tomorrow's activities will be smaller and closer to home, I think - we are all quite tired today (the plus side of that being I might manage not to wake up at 4am tomorrow!).