Daily Didactic Our day began in College Park, the college being the University of Maryland, north of Washington D.C.. We hopped the Metro bus for the train station, where we caught the Green line into the city. Public transit in D.C. is very nice and, while it took the better part of an hour to get where we we going, we wouldn't want to drive here. The train dropped us off just behind the National Archives, a block from "the mall". Two things to know about D.C. if you haven't visited. First, "the mall" is a two mile long stretch in the heart of the city that has just about everything you've ever heard of being here, all the monuments, the Smithsonians, the White House, the Capital Building, Supreme Court, etc.. Second, most things on the mall are free (if you don't think about your taxes). Now, the two dollar sodas and such add up quickly, but D.C. is really pretty hard to beat for a tourist mecca.After orienting ourselves, we wandered through the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, the Smithsonian American History Museum, the National Aquarium, the Smithsonian Castle, the National Gallery Sculpture Garden, and the Hirshorn Sculpture Garden. In the midst of all of the wandering we tried to walk by the White House to peer through the fence, but as we approached the whole crowd was ushered back a couple hundred yards. We waited for something exciting, but eventually gave up. Highlights of the day were definitely the dinosaur room and the amazingly cool insect zoo at the Natural History Museum, the transporation and Beatles exhibits at the American History Museum, the two sculpture gardens coupled with Brian's increasing ability to identify art, and the lighted map of D.C. at the Smithsonian Castle. While the National Aquarium had lots of neat fish and a couple of crocodiles, we've decided this sort of thing would be better near a coastline.Most tourist stuff closes up around 5:30, so we reversed our public transit route to Cherry Hill. We fired up the bus long enough to do a little grocery shopping, before calling it a nicely early evening.