Apparently, the Eastern seaboard was experiencing some kind of massive heat wave that made every day of our 15 day trip steamy and sweaty. I will say, thought that while it seems like our foliage always wilts when it's hot... the flora and fauna looked pretty good out there!
Fortunately, we used some points to get into first class for our journey, which gave Ivy a bit more room than she would have had in coach! Here she is in her pajamas for our first early flight!
We dressed her in jinbei for her arrival at our hotel in DC, the Mandarin Oriental- and she charmed the hotel staff right away, as usual!
I don't know how she managed to look so fresh after a long day of flying and driving in DC traffic, but she was in a delightful mood!
First thing on Sunday morning, we headed out to Mount Vernon for some sightseeing, before it got too terribly hot! I remember visiting Mount Vernon when I was a little kid, and was happy to take Ivy to see it too! It was pretty hot, but we enjoyed walking around the gardens, touring the house and checking out the gift shop. The place was completely full of boy scouts, visiting the area from around the country for the boy scout jubilee. As soon as we got in the car and headed back to DC, the weather took a quick turn and the blue sky turned black and the wind started whipping tree limbs around! Heavy rain flooded the roads immediately and we slogged through it to get back to our hotel. Magically the rain stopped just in time for us to get out of the car! We heard later that it was a pretty serious storm that knocked out power for a bunch of people! I kind of miss those quick storms that we used to have in Kansas- rain is so rare here in the summer time!
Here's Brian and Ivy out in front of the house. That's a pretty big lawn to cut by hand with a scythe...
George Washington planted this tree!
We really liked looking at the gardens- this one was my favorite! So many beautiful flowers, boxwood hedges and butterflies! We got some gardening ideas for our front yard project, too!
We had to wait a few minutes before we could go on our house tour, so we took a break in the shade!
Not my best look, but Ivy has such a cute smile!
This is a picture of our hotel entrance. It was perched on the edge of the Capitol Hill area- easy walking distance to all of the monuments and Smithsonians.
Ivy and I went for a nice long walk early so see the monuments, because it was super hot! She was, as ever a great sport in the heat!
I think I liked the WWII monument the best- I took a picture of this monument to the war at sea because my grandfather worked on this ship and used to attend the reunions for it.
The Vietnam memorial was beautiful and solemn. Ivy slept through all of the monuments, but it is probably just as well.
Sleeping!
The Capitol Mall was a lot bigger than I expected. The scale of the city is very impressive!
Here we are enjoying the garden next to the Smithsonian Castle. It was a nice shady spot with lots of benches and water features. We stopped here almost every day for a little while- a good place for Ivy's snack!
Climbing!
Our last day in DC, we walked the monument trail with Brian again- it was also super hot!
This is inside the Jefferson Monument.
Guess what! The Smithsonian Museums were air conditioned! My favorite part of the Smithsonian was Julia Child's kitchen!
This is an actual chunk of Route 66 from Oklahoma!
Here's Nancy Reagan's innagural gown- very elegant!
We foolishly left the comfortable air conditioning of the Smithsonian, and headed to the Botanical Garden right by the capitol building. They had a very cool children's garden with a lot of water features and a cute play house. Ivy really enjoyed playing there and cooling off in the water. She drank from a water fountain for the first time there too!
The day after this picture was taken, we made our way South towards Virginia and the Carolinas.