After two overnight flights - one of those being on a 50 seater prop plane - I arrived in the capital.

Louise would be joining me for the next week and we had planned to explore the capital and then pick up a car and drive up the coast for a bit.

Louise arrived that afternoon and we had a bit of a rest at the hotel.

That evening we ventured to a pizza restaurant near the hotel and planned our next few days activities.

The next morning we set out early to see the sights and monuments of DC.

We saw the Washington Memorial, Lincoln, Korean, Vietnam, world war memorials... basically all the memorials and statues they had to offer.

The only downside was that they had drained the memorial pools, the Capitol building was surrounded by scaffolding, and the Washington Monument was closed!

But it was a warm, sunny day and we walked to the White House and ventured up the Old Post Office tower.

That evening we went back to the hotel and then to IHOP for dinner - which was actually my first IHOP experience, and then an early night.

The next day we did the Smithsonian museums, which are all free, which is nice.

We visited the Air & Space museum - which has the most expensive branch of MacDonald's I've even been to - then to the American Indian museum, the National Gallery and the Natural History museum.

We then got the train to King Street and the old town of Alexandria, where we walked along the historic street to the waterfront and had some nice seafood.

We then got the free trolleybus back to the station and headed back to the hotel. And that was Washington done.