Wow, I’ve blogged quite a bit today, and I am still not caught up. We’ve seen so much on our trip and we want to remember it all. After our West Wing tour today, we went back to the hotel to change, I uploaded some pictures, blogged (partially) about our White House tour, rested a bit, then we headed back out. We took the Metro to the Archives stop, and went to the National Archives to view the “Charters of Freedom” – the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. We had originally planned to do this on Monday, as I had seen on the website that they would have a reading of the Declaration on July 4th at 10 AM. However, we thought we could go ahead and go (before the crowds, hahaha), and that would give us more time on Monday to spend at the Spy Museum. Well, were we ever wrong! We turned the corner going to the Archives and saw the line. It was wound all the way back to the main steps. We waited outside for nearly an hour, then finally made it in the door, and waited to be scanned and checked. After that, we thought we were home free.
WRONG.
We saw a bunch of people crowding for the elevator, so we decided to take the stairs. Somehow, probably because we didn’t look closely at the map, we went on into the Public Vault area and missed the main exhibit, in the rotunda, completely. Boy, did that turn out to be a fatal mistake! By the time we worked our way through the Vault and came back out, the line to see the Charters of Freedom stretched through several hallways, all the way back to the elevator. So, we went to the end of the line and waited another hour to get in the rotunda. I really wanted to take pictures, and took a bunch, but they really didn’t come out. Flash photogaphy was prohibited, which I understand completely, because it can damage these precious documents. We were really surprised that the documents, especially the Declaration, were in a very deteriorated state. The writing is fading and blurry in several areas, and it’s very hard to read. Still, it was incredible to think about them being there and seeing the originals that were signed to give us our freedom as a new nation. Very stirring.
After we finished at the Archives, we called Kirk and Nichole, as we had setup earlier in the afternoon, to try to go eat Thai with them. I’ll blog about it separately, as I wanted to write about some of the food we tried.
Seems like I remember them saying that they drop those things down thru the floor periodically or at night………..did you hear/read anything a/b that? I’m not confusing that with the movie am I!
We didn’t hear that, and we didn’t ask. They did talk about stuff like that in the movie. In “National Treasure”, they moved them down and through a secure corridor into the “Preservation Room”. We asked a guard at one point about the movie, and she sort of rolled her eyes. Apparently, they didn’t shoot ANY of National Treasure at the Archives or in the area, and they seemed a little miffed about it! Of course, they couldn’t really, because of the space and lighting. But, the guard did say when we asked if there had been a lot more visitors since the movie, a resounding YES. She said it had really brought in a lot more people, and especially parents with kids, which is good.
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