Boston and Washington - Day 14 - Washington Nationals Game, Smithsonian Castle, Air and Space

[Guest]

This is my first trippie (please be gentle)...


Trippie Index Here


Day 13 Here




What:


Boston, Washington D.C. and Baltimore


When:


Spring 2016


Who:


Me (April) Appearing in a Photo at last (...sorry about that!)

DS (Pooter) Meeting Herbert Hoover



Day 14 - St. Dominic’s, Washington Nationals Game, Smithsonian Castle, Return to Space




Our last full day today!


Sunday morning - it was bright today, but still VERY chilly. We were off to mass at the nearby St. Dominic’s (on E Street).

This is a convenient church for Catholics staying near the Smithsonian/Capitol. It’s pretty...

...and they offer fellowship (with coffee and DOUGHNUTS!) after mass.

Sadly, we had to give the doughnuts a miss today - we had an appointment with some presidents…

I want to try and visit all the Major League Baseball Parks before I die - we hit three on this holiday! Today was Nationals Park - only my second National League Ballpark.

My first NL Park was the Olympic Stadium in Montreal.

Montreal was a...unique place to watch a game. Midway through the game - there was a "Best Ar*e" contest...

In addition to baseball, the Nationals are known for “The Racing Presidents”, who - as their name suggests - race one another in the middle of the fourth inning. I thought this would be a scream to watch. Kids can also “meet” the Presidents before games (and after the race).


In addition, we were going to a Sunday game - and on Sundays, kids aged 4-12 get to run the bases after the game!

I thought this would be fun for Poot, who has never had the chance to run on a “real” diamond.


We took the Metro to the park; the train was only a little crowded. It was fun seeing all the little boys in their jerseys and gloves bouncing around the carriage.

Outside the park:

Security here was more thorough and less friendly than at the Twins/Orioles game in Baltimore. Once through, we could see a couple of the Presidents leaving the plaza - hopefully more would be out soon…

I took Poot over to see the field while we waited for the big cheeses to appear. Nationals Park is a lot more concrete-y than Camden Yards or Fenway; I found the atmosphere of the park itself wasn’t quite as good as the “homelier” stadia...

We didn’t know this until we arrived at the park (having only watched The Weather Channel…), but a NEW Racing President was making his debut today…


...Herbert Hoover!

Poot was one of the first kids to meet him - he was pretty excited, despite his face here... We never did find out why Hoover was chosen to be one of the Nats' mascots, he seems an odd choice!


After we thanked President Hoover for the photo, we turned and walked right into the mob surrounding…


...George Washington!

A note on meeting the Presidents (and these terrible photos):


These “meet and greets” were a bit like the old-school M&Gs at Disneyland Paris...and no fastpasses were available.


If there were minders, we couldn’t see them - and there were certainly no organised queues. The pushy-shovy people always seem to win when it’s like this…


We had been very lucky with Hoover; Poot was in the right place at the right time - but with Washington there were SO MANY people, and neither Poot nor I are good at shoving in. Eventually a military-looking dad called out (loudly), “George - how ‘bout you do pictures with the kids who have been waiting PATIENTLY?”


George then pointed to kids one by one, and eventually Poot had his turn. But because there were so many people waiting, I kind of felt like I had to snap my shot quickly. And, unfortunately, George was positioned so the kids were looking right into the sun. I did ask Poot if he minded if I posted the, rather...unattractive photo of him - he said no, bless him.



While the sun was out today, and in the sunshine it wasn’t QUITE so cold...unfortunately our seats were in the shade (under an overhang) - so back on went the hat, hood and gloves. Boo!

I did make Poot pose for one picture in his Nats shirt.

We had good seats on the first base line, and we sat next to a local who was happy to tell us a little about Nats’ traditions (such as they are, the Nats having only been around since 2005…). We all settled in to watch the Nationals play the Miami Marlins.

There was an amusing chap sitting a couple of rows in front of us - he had a catchy “Buffalo” chant that he yelled out when Wilson Ramirez (his nickname is The Buffalo) came up to bat or made a good play.

B-U-F-F-A-L-O! Put it all together and you’ve got a Buffalo!

Poot learned this chant quite quickly and was eager to sing along (much to the chap’s surprise…).



We got a couple of hot dogs after the third inning. Poot - having missed out on the skating rink hot dogs in Boston - wanted to get one, and I didn’t want to wait twice for food. Two hot dogs in two weeks, pretty sure that’s my hot dog quota for about the next two years…

In the middle of the fourth, out came the Presidents for their race!

The victory went to…


...the debutant - Herbert Hoover!

The race was over so quickly, but it was just as funny as you would imagine. The next ballpark race I want to see is the one between the RACING SAUSAGES at Miller Park in Milwaukee.

We enjoyed ourselves at the game, but being a neutral isn’t like cheering for your OWN TEAM, like we could in Baltimore.

I could tell that Poot was getting very cold indeed. In about the eight inning I asked him if he wanted to go stand in the sun for a while and warm up - he jumped at the chance.


Now Poot is not a complaining child, so when he does chirp, I pay attention. He said his feet were so cold he couldn’t feel his toes (he only had Crocs with him on this holiday, and even with socks, they’re not exactly warm shoes…).


It was about 45 degrees today, but in the shade it felt much colder - and unlike at the zoo, we were sitting still (no constant motion to warm us up).


We watched until the end of the eighth inning from a sunny platform, and then headed out before the crowds. Poot said he didn’t want to wait and run the bases. I was a bit sad that the weather had rather spoiled my plans for the day...


Before we left London, they weather gurus said it would be 80 degrees in Washington - only off by fifty degrees then!


This was the first time I’ve ever left a baseball game before the last out. I felt more than a little embarrassed, but we were frozen and I wanted to move around and warm up. Washington DID win (though to be frank, as a neutral, I didn't care. )


We got the train back to Smithsonian and decided to pop into the Castle for a wee while.

There are a few exhibits here, and you can also learn about the founding of the Smithsonian. No metal detectors here, but the surly and superior attitude of security staff was omnipresent at the Smithsonian museums - this one was no exception.


A piece of the Wright Brothers’ hangar (guess who took this one... ).

We didn’t stay too long at the Castle - Poot wanted to try and see the Space exhibits that we had missed on Monday back at the Air and Space Museum. There were a few “hands on” exhibits for kids that Poot really enjoyed. Here he is hunting for Jupiter…

Yet again we closed the museum. They threw everybody out, and we spent the next little while just wandering around the Mall and looking at whatever took our (read: Poot’s) fancy. Many birds were photographed...


Back at our room we had some tricksy packing to manage.

In the end I was able to squish all our clothes into one cabin bag - Poot’s was completely full of books!


I can’t even guess what it weighed...I planned to tell the stewardess on the flight and see if she wanted me to gate-check the bag so that it couldn’t fall from the overhead bin (in case of turbulence). I saw a woman get beaned by a huge roller bag once and I don’t want to be responsible for something like that happening...



No swimming tonight - I have a weird thing about traveling with wet swimming costumes.



Instead we had an early night with our Target yummies and The Weather Channel. Tonight’s documentary was about plane crashes...just the thing to watch before flying back tomorrow, then...

continues in next post with Poot's Day 14

[Guest]

Poot's Day 14:


First today we went to mass. There I dropped all my American pennies in the poor box. It was loud!


After mass, I had my first ever time meeting Sisters! Some of them are in this picture!

Then we had to go to the baseball game. There was an amazing sculpture of ten balls in a row. It was fifty feet up, I wondered what would happen if one of the balls fell down…


After that Mother asked me to stand next to a big, fake Budweiser can so she could take my picture. The sun was in my eyes so I look all squinty.

Then we took our seats and watched the Washington Nationals play the Miami Marlins.

It was very cold; my feet were like little footsicles. During the baseball game, we watched the president mascots race. Herbert Hoover won!


We left the game a bit early - it was obvious that Washington was going to win and I think if we had stayed there much longer, we would have both gotten frostbite.

Then we went to the Smithsonian Castle. Unfortunately the shop was already closed, so I couldn’t buy a postcard. The best thing I saw there was a large geode with yellow inside; it was very pretty - it looked kind of like this:

After that we went back to the Air and Space Museum. We spent a lot of time in the Universe exhibit. We tried to use a Galilean telescope to see the moon, it was very tricky and I couldn’t do it! There was a weird kid running around messing with all the telescopes. Later we saw his teacher put him in some kind of museum time-out.

We saw lots of other exhibits related to the universe. We also looked at one of the V2 rockets (like the ones fired at London in WWII).

There was a very interesting map of air raids; the one closest to us happened in Hertford, where a Nazi aircraft crashed!


After that we went back to our hotel and packed. Then we ate the rest of our food from Target, watched the Weather Channel and went to sleep.


Day 15 Here

[Melbatb]

We always leave games early to avoid the crowds so don't feel bad!

Busy last day! You did well to pack all those books in cabin baggage!

[Glee Fan]

Am very impressed you managed to get all those books in as hand baggage, well done!

What a nice last day just mooching about, lovely

[Guest]

Originally Posted by Melbatb

We always leave games early to avoid the crowds so don't feel bad!

Busy last day! You did well to pack all those books in cabin baggage!

See more...

That case was SERIOUSLY heavy!

As for the game, we've only been "neutrals" a couple of times - it's nowhere near as much fun (though I really dug the presidents...).

When I was a student and people left basketball games early, we would all chant "Beat the Traffic!" over and over at them...

[Guest]

Originally Posted by Glee Fan

Am very impressed you managed to get all those books in as hand baggage, well done!

What a nice last day just mooching about, lovely

See more...

Yes, those are the days when I'm glad it's just me and Poot. DH doesn't do baseball, and he DEFINITELY doesn't do "mooching".

Thanks SO VERY MUCH for all your lovely comments over the days. You are rather my favourite human being right now.

[disney owl]

a full hand baggage full of books sounds like heaven, hope it didn't cause problems on the flight

[Guest]

Originally Posted by disney owl

a full hand baggage full of books sounds like heaven, hope it didn't cause problems on the flight

See more...

I told the stewardess right when we boarded - she whisked the bag off to a closet-y type thing. I saw a woman get beaned by a falling roller bag a few years ago ( ) - I did NOT want to be responsible for someone's fractured skull!

But yes - Poot was in utter ecstasy with all his books. We are big readers at our house.

Thanks so much for commenting day-by-day. It has been so much fun going back through all (OK, most!) of our adventures!

[RachelM]

What a busy last day.

[Guest]

Originally Posted by RachelM

What a busy last day.

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It sounds awful to say, but this was one holiday that I was glad to finish. We had such a lovely time in Boston - and some of the individual things we did in D.C/Baltimore were great - but the general "tone" of the museum staff really did put a damper on the trip for me.

I can't even IMAGINE how it must be visiting the Capitol/White House now...

It's funny, though - I know that for some people that sort of thing just rolls off them. I wish I could be like that.