This little man and I were on our own for sight-seeing, as papa is in the shadow of FINALS next week. For all you locals, the best time to park on Madison and Jefferson (for the free 3 hour parking) is 9am….or before. I know the signs say 10am, but trust me, at 10am there is not a spot in sight–and won’t be for at least 3 hours!!
We first hit up the Smithsonian Institute. It was the original Smithsonian, is a beautiful building, and has a great little sampling of items from each museum. I also loved the photos in the main hall. Worth a stop.
We then visited the National Archives and saw The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution along with a lot of other cool historic docs. I am just in awe that we live so close to all of this amazing stuff!!
The Constitution and Declaration are in a “no flash photography” zone, so if you go, remember to take your nicer camera-this was the best we could do, set on a podium, trying not to move!
As if we hadn’t seen enough, I was intrigued by flyers about the Portrait Gallery. It is off of the National Mall a few blocks, so I think it is a little less traveled than the other museums. I think it is my new favorite! Among all of the brilliant portraits (and who doesn’t love looking at portraits?) were two special exhibits that I thought were great. First was a whole room of actual Christmas cards that had been sent by artists to their friends and family. So cool.

The other was this portrait of LL Cool J. I love it. I’m glad we got to see these temporary treasures.