DC Trip: part one

I can't believe it's taken me this long to find time to report on our trip to DC. It's been a busy week and Sarah's friend Susan is here visiting with us. It's been a bit crazy around here. Well, enough gabbing...on to the trip.
We flew out on May 26th at the butt-crack of dawn. The shuttle picked us up at 4:30 am. The first leg of the flight was to Atlanta. Thank goodness for travel Scrabble. That first leg seemed to go on forever. The second leg to DC was short but delayed about an hour. Butch picked us up and we headed to the house. After Cindy and Sarah were introduced we settled in for dinner and an evening of conversation. We all headed to bed somewhat early.
The next day, my life-long friend Karen and her youngest son Adam picked us up and we went to lunch. After that we just chilled out at their house chatting. Later, we met Butch and Cindy for dinner at Sweetwater Tavern.
On Thursday, Cindy dropped us off at the Metro train so we could ride into DC for some sightseeing. We walked around a bit seeing the Washington Monument, WWII and Lincoln Memorials before heading to the Museum of American History. There were a ton of schoolkids on field trips that day so it was a bit loony to say the least. We got hungry so we decided to try the cafeteria in the National Gallery of Art. (recommended to us by a nice man on the train) It was spendy (expected) but good. We had a nice chicken/pesto sandwich and cannoli for dessert.
After lunch, we tackled the National Gallery of Art. I never expected them to have such a good collection of modern and contemporary art. One room was full of nothing but Giacometti's and Dubuffet's works...two of my faves. It was the first time I had seen any of Dubuffet's paintings in person. I enjoyed that.
After the modern stuff, we hit the sculpture and classic paintings. The collection is impressive but the galleries are labyrinthine and confusing. We got turned around a few times. We saw some great art but after a while I think both of us were going loopy from seeing so much art. We decided to call it quits and come back another day for more. We walked by the Capital and then headed back to the train. Butch picked us up and we headed home for the evening.
Stay tuned for part two.