The First Day of Our Trip - Albany to DC

I am so glad I decided to still plan this D.C. trip even though I am pregnant. I mean I am pregnant not disabled right? The day before we left I compiled a list of things I would like to see in out three days in Washington.

We took a train to Washington from Albany, NY. It was approximately $160/pp round trip before the AAA discounts. I did not think that was too bad when plane tickets would have been over $300. I like riding on a train, the motion does not make me sick and there is so much to see when on a train.

We traveled two and a half hour from Albany to NYC Penn Station. Then we had an hour wait until the train to D.C., which is not really that long when they board the trains 15 minutes early. We were actually approached by one of the employees and he told us to follow him with a group of other people and we were allowed to board earlier than the crowd. That was definitely a plus. We made it to D.C. around three o'clock. Our hotel (Hilton Garden Inn) was within walking distance from the train station so it was nice to see some of the city before even getting to our hotel.

CNN was on our way to the Hotel

After settling in at the hotel room and getting situated from the ride we decided to head out to the Washington Monument area.

The squirrels were friendly

After walking around the capitol we started down the walk way through the Mall.

The Smithsonian Castle

The monument was still closed so we just got to look at the monument which was amazing

The WW II Memorial

I really liked the engraved scenes they had in the beginning

My wonderful Hubby :)

The Pillar for NY

The wall of stars... each represents 100 American Service personnel that lost their lives or remain missing from WWII

The reflecting pool was being worked on so we took a nice scenic walk to the Vietnam Wall and Lincoln's Memorial.

Baby Geese

I love this photo I took with my iPhone and edited with Instagram of my Mother-in-Law

I got mooned by a duck

The Vietnam Wall

My Father-in-Law served in Vietnam

The Lincoln Memorial

On our walk to dinner we walked by the White House....

After doing a little Google search we found The Capitol City Brewing Company. We decided to try it out. Of course the google map/ GPS on our phones took us to the wrong spot, but we eventually found the restaurant. The food was delicious. I was not really thinking about my healthy eating when I ordered the Chili Cheese Nachos to share & then a yummy cheese burger :) They had complimentary soft pretzels as well. I would definitely recommend this spot.

After returning to our room we decided we should have brought our pedometers after all the walking we did that night. After dinner we ended up taking the Metro back to the hotel. We got lucky because the hotel was a block from the Metro Station. It was an easy system to learn and we had a map to help us.

I will tell you about Friday in a post tomorrow :)

For those of you that have been to DC what is your favorite spot?
For those that have not been what would you want to see?