ArboursAbroad contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. If you purchase using one of the affiliated links, we may receive compensation at no extra cost to you. See our Disclosure Policy for more information.
We arrived in Alexandria late on a rainy evening to Madison welcoming us with open arms, a cozy home, and a hot, home cooked, delicious meal. We hung out with Madison for a few hours just talking and catching up with one another. Chris was still at work, so we tried staying up till he got home, but that proved to be very difficult. We would have to put off our hellos and hugs till the next morning after we all got up.
Day One : Washington DC
The next morning, Madison had to go to work while Chris had the day off, so the three of us ended up making some breakfast. After breakfast, we decided that it would be best for us to get a parking permit so we didn’t have to move the car every few hours—a headache we didn’t have to worry about for our time in Alexandria. We were able to get a visitor-parking permit for a whole week, and we Maddy got off work early! Woo Hoo! Two big blessing!!
Strolling through Washington DC was on our list for the day. We got District tacos, visited the White House, and found the Air and Space Museum. We ended our day geochacheing and playing snapchat hide-n-seek. District Tacos was one the best foods we have had on our trip. It is loaded with many different ingredients, sauces, salsas, and meats. And because it was our first time there, the lady gave us a free taco! For those of you who do not know what geocaching is, go check it out here. It is an extremely fun way of seeing parts of a city or town that you would normally not go to otherwise.
And what’s snapchat hide-n-seek you ask?? It’s a game the girls more or less made up on the fly. The girls were getting annoyed from the geocache game so they took off and then started taking snaps of things that were in their location. While the boys got the snaps, they quickly took off trying to see where each picture could have been taken so that they could find the girls. This game we on for a good 30 minutes. Super fun game, we highly recommend trying it if this seems slightly interesting to you.
After all the games, we decided to head back to the metro and go home because the Cline’s had work early the next morning. As we were nearing the metro there was a restaurant that specializes in homemade pop tarts and alcoholic milkshakes. We all got vodka oreo milkshakes. So delicious! We hung out there for an hour or so then made our way back home and called wrapping up our first night in downtown Washington DC.
Day Two : Washington DC
Then next morning, we got up after Chris and Madison had left for work and started planning out our day in Washington DC. Because we didn’t get the chance to see the Natural History Museum the day before, we knew we had to go there first. After the museum, we decided to go walk around all the different monuments, takes pictures, and people watch. After we saw the last monument we wanted to see, we headed back to the Cline’s homestead and had a wonderful pesto pasta dinner to help prepare Chris for his race the next morning.
Chris got up super early for his race and Madison had to leave early for work. After Chris had returned from his race, we showered up, ate some breakfast, and then headed back to the location of his race. On Chris’ racing bib, there were coupons for one free beer at three different locations. So of course, we drank the local beers.
Later that afternoon, we went to a pretty cool waterfall in Maryland called Great Falls. It had a nice little hike leading up to it and some great views. Definitely a place worth checking out! Simple hike with amazing views of the falls. The three of us weren’t really keeping track of the time until we started walking back to the car; at 4:00 we still had a 45 minute car ride to the house to pick up Madison and her friend, Heather needed to change, and then drive back into DC for church that started at 5:00. Surprisingly, we made it to church just five minutes late.
The church service was wonderful, great music, great sermon, and a great gift for newcomers—a book written by the pastor. After church, we decided to out to dinner at this wonderful burger joint that had the best habanero burgers. We started walking back to the car, but as we were walking back we noticed some type of an art show that had lots of music. So of course we are run in to see what it was all about.
Madison was the first person in and she quickly got headphones that were synced up to the music that was playing outside; everyone else followed suit. There was a DJ that was mixing some pretty cool beats and we all danced like crazy while observing the art show in this old church building. Imagine this, if one person didn’t have headphones on, they would barely be hearing the music that was out side, so naturally it appeared to be a silent rave party in church with a bunch of people head banging to nothing. After all the shenanigans, we went back to the house to get ready for exploring the national monuments by night, but unfortunately we didn’t last too long and came home pretty early.
Day Three : River Trip and Evening in Washington DC
The next morning came and we were supposed to leave the house by 10am to drive to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia to float the Potomac River in inter-tubes (so we thought). We didn’t end up leaving Alexandria until 10:45, had to stop at Starbuck’s and McDonalds for all the other people who had come with, so that pushed the departure time to about 11:15. We finally arrived in Harpers Ferry and wanted to get food and drinks for the guys. Of course we stopped at Wal-Mart to get everything. After getting everything and getting in line at 12:50, the guys were told that they had to wait 10 minutes until it was 1:00 to buy the drinks. (In West Virginia, they have a law that doesn’t allow you to buy any type of alcohol until 1pm).
Once we gathered all our stuff, we found were the tube rental is and inquired about everything. We quickly realized that we didn’t research this trip very well because the rental was way expensive, only left at two times during the day, and everyone in the party is required to have strapped on sandals, which only a couple of us had. We decided that this rental thing wasn’t a good idea so we asked a local where the best place to go to float and hang out in the river. He directed us down the main road in town to a national historic part of town.
We first drove the wrong way and ended up in the middle of nowhere. We entered the park and had to ride a trolley to where a bridge was located, then walk across the bridge and down a walking path to a nice hang out spot on the river. Our time was spent well; we waded in the water, chatted, and walked up the river a little ways so that we could float down in the little floaties we brought with us. We relaxed here for a few hours before returning the same way home.
We got back to the house around 6pm, but quickly after arriving, we ran down to the metro station to get a ride into DC one last time. With the metro shutting down at midnight on a Sunday, we had a few hours to run around Washington DC and explore.
We got on the streets and got to exploring the city for the last time. We went to the WWII Memorial first, followed by the Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Memorial, lastly the White House. When we were at the White House, we finally decided to check out what time it was and realized it was 11:45 and we had a 20 minute walk back to the closest metro station, so we started walking very briskly. As we were approaching the escalator to go down into the metro we could hear train car coming in hot, so we started sprinting on down the two flights of stairs. We made it in the car by the skin of our teeth. If we hadn’t made it into the car, it would have been a 7.5 mile walk back!
The next morning after our wonderful time with the Cline’s, we had to take off and go onto our next place, North Carolina to see Amber and the kids!
