DC Day Three:: All restaurants should be Gabe-Approved

Our tour at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing started bright and early. They didn't allow pictures. Or give out free samples. Hayden couldn't stomach the smell of the ink, so he didn't even do the whole tour.

We live in a land where coffee is always only a block away. At most. Downtown DC has not realized this key to productivity yet. We were committed, and finally found an underwhelming source at Potbelly. Where, we also found a giant roach. We live in a roach-free land. And so the kids thought it was someone's pet that had run away... Lake Woebegone has nothing on us!

Gracie had spied the Carousel at Smithsonian Castle during our trolley ride, and we got there as soon as it opened. Gracie wanted Jeff to ride with her, so I got to take pictures. And may have had an altercation with a twit whose mouth worked faster than her brain. Bayley was embarrassed. Ah well. There are certain words I do not tolerate being used in front of my children, even if they aren't directed at us.

The Museum of Natural History came next. An African Elephant greeted us in the rotunda, and really set the tone for the visit. Gracie loved the animals and dinosaur fossils. I made sure I saw the Hope Diamond. We'd planned on doing the butterfly pavilion, but the wait was ridiculous and the kids were hungry.

One of the most raved about places in all the online DC with kids guides is Mitisam, the restaurant inside the National Museum of the American Indian. Well, it's a really expensive cafeteria. Poorly laid out and impossible to go through as a family. I had to pay four separate times. Since there was a crowd and only one station to pay...yeah. These guides were really letting me down!

While the cafeteria was craptastic, the museum was awesome. After the first floor, Hayden was tired and decided to laze about in the lobby. Which meant the rest of us had to rush through. Definitely a museum I'd love to see again.

The US Botanic Gardens is right next door. We had lovely weather, so took our time moseying on over there. The boys weren't as into it as we girls. Everything was so colorful and lovely, with a slower pace and fewer crowds than everywhere else we'd been that day.


We checked back at the hotel, and with Uncle Gabe. Apparently we should not be allowed to choose our own restaurants. We took the Metro up to Capitol City Brewing. Now, we go to a lot of breweries and such with our kiddos, so when they declared this the best one ever, I knew Uncle Gabe knew what he was doing. It may have had more to do with the unlimited soft pretzels, but a win is a win.

Since it was such a nice night, we decided to walk back to the hotel. The National Mall is much less crowed at night, plus the monuments are all lit up. It's hard to get good pictures, but much easier to find things - like our state at the National World War II Memorial.