In my 40 years or so of life, I had never had the chance to visit the east coast of America. When my wife had a business trip there recently I quickly signed my daughter and me on as tag a longs. I put my daughter in charge of navigation for the trip. The weeks leading up to the trip provided ample time for her to research the destinations to be explored on our trip. Her top destination choice was D.C.. My wife's business conference was in Hartford, Connecticut so this is where we set up base camp for our week of east coast adventures. As it turned out, Hartford was strategically within driving distance of all of our targeted destinations, including our nation's capital to my surprise.

Since D.C. was our top destination, we put it on our first two days' itinerary. We left Hartford at day break for the 6 hour drive to Washington in order to arrive by mid day to begin monument gawking. (As a side note, this trip would have been faster if I had just listened to the directions provided by our GPS lady. When we approached NYC I felt I knew a faster route and choose to ignore our Navigational directions. My faster route ended up costing us at least 45 minutes. Lesson learned). We hit the ground running once we arrived. Knowing we have only a day and half to see 5 days worth of sights, time was of the essence. We used our pre-trip research to trim down a long list of choices and that lead us straight to the Smithsonian. With the popularity of the movie, Night In The Museum, my daughter wanted to see the Museum of Natural History while I was in favor of the Air and Space Museum and the resting place of the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, the National Archives. The Smithsonian is wonderful set along both sides of on the National Mall, connecting the Washington Monument and the Capital Building. This setting also makes it rather convenient to see multiple museums in one day. For this reason we were able to satisfy both of our desires and see three of the 19 Smithsonian Museums on the first day.

I was thrilled to find The Museum of Natural History loaded with more than just skeletons and carcasses of historic animals. To my surprise, the museum included the Mineral Science exhibit. Ok, wait, before you say BORING, let me explain to you that the Mineral Science exhibit is a collection of the world's most precious, and priceless, gems. Some highlights include, the Tiffany Diamond, twelve of the rarest pearls in the world, along with the world's 7 rarest diamonds including the 45 carat Hope Diamond once owned by King Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette. Talk about history! The Mineral Science exhibit is a gorgeous display and not to be missed.

After 4 hours in the Natural History Museum, we were then on to the National Archives before night fall. We made it there at 30 minutes to closing, just enough time to stand in the presence of our beloved Declaration of Independence, Constitution and the Bill of Rights housed in the impressive and daunting Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom. When you visit the Archives, and every American should, be sure to talk with the security guards. They are incredibly knowledgeable of the history of the documents. I was asked by one guard to look closely at the bottom of the first page of the Declaration. My daughter and I listened to the twenty something guard tell us that the 16 year old transcriber of the Declaration made a mistake. Transcribing by hand was, needless to say, an arduous task. Instead of rewriting the entire page the young transcriber corrected the misspelling by using heated wax to lift off the incorrect sentence in what is the earliest corrector tape. Seeing these documents in person and upclose gives you the sense of being in the presence of the men who created and formed our country.

We wrapped up our first day in D.C. with a late dinner at a well known lunch time eatery for law makers and power brokers, the Billy Goat Tavern. During lunch, this oddly named eatery is bustling with the powerful. At dinner, it's a restaurant less traveled. The Billy Goat's menu is loaded with delicious and ridiculously inexpensive items, like a rib eye steak for $5.25. We were so impressed we just had to come back for breakfast the following morning. We enjoyed eggs, hashbrowns and toast for $2.95 and steak and eggs for just $6,25. Put the Billy Goat on your list when traveling to D.C.