Mr. Braeden goes to Washington

Our plane arrived in Baltimore at around 11:00 PM on Thursday night.  The last time I flew to Baltimore with Braeden he was 7 months old.  Can I just say this was easier/more pleasant?  He hefted my suitcase to the overhead bin.  He provided nice conversation and showed me funny memes on his phone and he didn't cry one time.  Not even at takeoff and landing.

So that was different than the last time.

We told Stella that we would take Uber to the rented house because our arrival was so late.  She wouldn't hear of it.  And if there's one thing I know it's that you don't argue with Stella.

She picked us up and then wondered if we wanted to go see the monuments at night.

Yes!

So we drove by the temple, all lit up on the beltway, then into Washington, D. C.  By then it was well past midnight and we pretty much had the streets to ourselves.

We got to the house at 2:30 AM.  Stella?  She loves the nightlife.

Friday we did more sightseeing.

I loved the sassy license plates in our nation's capitol.

Taxation Without Representation

We took the metro which was remarkably clean.  (My last experience on subway transit was in Paris and ew.)  Our first stop was the top floor of the W Hotel which Stella knew about as a photo op spot.

Here's Braeden overlooking the back side of the White House

We went down to the Mall and saw all the sights.

There's the Washington Monument in the background which we didn't quite get all of. Selfies are hard.  Even when you have long arms like Braeden.

I texted a picture of Braeden and the White House to Fam-a-lam and then Emma magic happened.

Getting that girl a cell phone was a wise move.  Entertainment for days.

I hadn't seen the World War II Memorial before and it is beautiful:

I posed by the Nevada:

Braeden and Stella by Virginia:

And then Braeden between North Carolina and Virginia, the two states in his mission.

I said, "Smile!"

He said, "I'm trying to be like D. Trump.  When in Rome."

Sigh.

We visited the Vietnam Memorial on our way to the Lincoln Memorial.

My little (maybe not so little) political science major was pretty much in love with the whole place.

I took a picture of him on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, as a companion to this other picture we have:

He was more alert this time around....

By then we were getting tired so Stella hailed a cab and we took that to the Jefferson Memorial.  The cab driver was from Ethiopia and Braeden and Stella had a good visit with him and the introvert in the back seat pretty much kept her mouth shut.

Stella calls the memorials "Mr. Lincoln" and "Mr. Jefferson" and it's a toss up between which one I love more.

We took another cab to the Capitol and this time the driver was from Pakistan.  Again Braeden and Stella chatted with him.  I admire and don't possess those skills of easy conversation with strangers.  There's a reason why people like Stella and Braeden have so many friends.

The Capitol was closed for the day by the time we got there.  Stella and I found a place to sit and Braeden said, "I'm just going to go touch it."

That's him down in front.

Taking Braeden to Washington was sort of like taking Emma to Paris.  The stuff of dreams.