We slept in this morning. Desmond has been doing alright sleeping in the hotel room, but every time he wakes, we do. And the time change makes us feel like sleeping in till 9 is still more like 6am. Ah well. So it was mid to upper 80s when we got out the door (our weather apps couldn't agree).

Nevertheless, it felt more comfortable than yesterday, so we walked into the park down by the monuments again . It's very pretty there. Bryan keeps waiting for one of the joggers to say "on your left" like the scene in Captain America: Winter Soldier. While there have been no lack of joggers passing us by, no one has said a word yet.

There was some conversation about walking over to the Jefferson Memorial that we drive by yesterday on the bus, but Bryan was concerned we might get caught trudging a long distance in the direct sun and be miserable. Having been the one to suggest our tromp around in the deluge yesterday, I deferred to his better judgement. I'm so glad I did. By the time we made it to the original Smithsonian building, the sun had come out from behind the cloud, the breeze had vanished, and we were (needless to say) quite warm.

We went into "The Castle" as they call it, and I prepared to be impressed by the collection of items representative of the entire Smithsonian. I was hoping for the Smithsonian's Greatest Hits, and was underwhelmed. The AC wasn't amazing either. So we kept going to The National Gallery.

There we saw some Monet's, Rafael's and a number of American paintings that we enjoyed. We asked after paintings by Millet, but we're told they didn't have any currently on display.
Desmond wasn't impressed, because there wasn't anything hanging from the ceiling. I actually really liked the atrium. It had tall tropical green plants and many white hydrangeas around a fountain . Very pleasant.

When we had appreciated all the paintings we could, we continued on to the National Archives. There was saw the Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Very cool! We were hungry by this point, so we walked to Hard Rock Cafe and got some food. Bryan enjoyed a BBQ burger and I had a club sandwich. Desmond got to slurp down another squeezie tube of puréed goodness.

Then we went to Pitango Gelato. Yum! We both had chocolate. I had mine with raspberry and Bryan had his with coconut and strawberry.

Then we hoofed it back to the hotel for a siesta. When we walked past the front desk the employee on duty (who had often remarked on just how cute Desmond was as we went in and out) gave him a little set of animal bath toys.

In the evening we grabbed snacks at 7 Eleven in loo of dinner and got back outside to go for a walk. We went to the park again and saw the monuments lit up. And I saw my very first fireflies! Bucket list item - check! A girl on a bicycle said "on your left" to us so Bryan was happy, too.

When we got back to the hotel we packed up our things. Desmond seemed to get a spurt of energy and stayed up till 11pm being really silly (again, at home it would only be 8, so hard to blame him too much).

And that was our day. Tomorrow is our last morning in DC. It's gone by fast!