We stopped over in Washington D.C. on the way to Mexico City. We landed at the Washington Dulles Airport (IAD) at about 10:30 AM and took a taxi straight to
the Washington Monument ($60). It was a sunday 
and there was no traffic so the taxi ride only took about 25 minutes.We stopped by the little book store near the monument to pick up our free tickets which we already reserved on line for the 12 pm time slot. It was cold and windy but bearable. We went through security and took the elevator up the tallest free standing stone
structure in the world 
to have the 360 view of the area including the White House, the Capitol Building and the Lincoln Memorial.After that we walked to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial passing by the WWII Memorial and the Reflecting Pool.
Next was the famous view of the Capitol, the Washington Monument and the Reflecting Pool from the Lincoln Memor
ial. This is the famous shot that we have seen countless times on TV and movies. After visiting old Abe we moved on to the Korean War Veterans Memorial to check out the ghostly statues of American soldiers.After a quick lunch at a nearby cafeteria, we hopped into a taxi and drove to the Capitol building for some family pictures, then a quick stop at the Supreme court on the way to the White House. President Obama was home at the time but we did not want to see him as we were on a tight schedule to catch our 5:30 pm flight to Mexico City. The White House did not look impressive but looked kind of run down and disappointing.
Another smooth taxi ride took us back to IAD safely for sufficient time to go through security again. By 4:30 pm we were leisurely having a lousy dinner at the airport prior to boarding our UA flight to Mexico City
.
It was very hectic but we accomplished everything we set out to see in a very rushed and superficial way. There are multiple excellent museums in the area but that would take a week to enjoy them
all. There may be an Iraq War Veterans Memorial next time we are in the area.
