What a weekend! The Boy and I had a wonderful time hitting the road together. The drive down on Friday was great (perfect timing in terms of traffic, except we did miss a turn in Baltimore and ended up driving around backtracking for a half hour), the weather was fantastic, and he was a trooper about walking everywhere. Friday afternoon we went to the Natural History museum (dinosaurs and meteorites were on the agenda) and we walked around the mall and the Capitol grounds a little. The brick grotto with the fountain was open and renovated this year, and he thought that was cool. Dinner was at the hotel (overpriced but convenient), and he passed out very quickly afterwards. We're definitely staying elsewhere next year -- they put us in a room facing NJ Ave and there's a fire station directly across the street. Nice for safety, but I was up every hour or so with the fire trucks wailing away. The Boy, of course, sleeps like a rock, so he didn't notice. Time to find a less expensive option sitting on or very near a Metro station!!Saturday we got up early, had the included breakfast buffet (which was a deal given the amount The Boy ate), and then we went to the Washington Monument. Claustrophobia in check for a few hours, we did the 9:30 tour, and he enjoyed it very much. I was definitely glad to be out of there, though. We found the 15th St public restrooms where the fire alarm was going off for no particular reason and the park service employees were having their coffee in a golf cart nearby. Apparently fire alarms are not enough reason to reschedule a coffee break.
The book festival got going at 10 am, so we were there just after it started. We stopped in and bought books early (not a big line yet), then made our way to the PBS Kids tent, Magic School Bus, Target tent and the information tent. Good thing we hit the giveaways early -- they were running out of a lot of things by noon as the place was mobbed with people later! We got posters and bags, polaroids of The Boy with various cartoon characters (costumed folks), a Magic School Bus book from the Scholastic people, two stuffed parrots from the PBS people, and various coloring books and activity books from other companies. The Target people were giving away what they called reading mats, but were really nice, thick, heavy vinyl-coated bags. One side of the bag has a checkerboard layout, and inside the inner zip pocket of the bag is a set of red and white plastic checkers! We had a good couple games under the trees just across from the children's authors' presentation tent while we listened to David Wiesner, Rosemary Wells, and Judy Schachner talk about their books. I was a little disappointed this year that the lines were so long to get books signed -- I gave up even considering trying since most of the authors were scheduled for only one-hour stints at the book signing stations. The Boy is patient, but he is not that patient. We wandered around the pavilions listening to various authors, though, and that was fun. Most of the pavilions were wall-to-wall people, some standing 8-10 deep around the edge of the chairs. We got to hear part of Terry Pratchett's presentation, and some of Holly Black's, Patricia MacLachlan's, and a few others. It was hard to get to hear complete presentations, not only because of the crowds and distance between pavilions, but because of the schedule! We tried getting from one pavilion to another quickly to hear one author or another, but invariably we missed chunks of the presentations. The LOC was recording all of the sessions, though, so hopefully they will finish the video podcasts soon and we can see what we missed, and I can recommend appropriate ones to teachers.
Met dear family friend BabyBeckie (who is now working in DC), and she wandered the festival with us all afternoon. We went back to the hotel to drop off the stuff (camera, book fest bags o'freebies, and what then felt like 85 pounds of books), and we went to Union Station. We had dinner at one of the nice restaurants there (not NEARLY as expensive as the hotel option!), and we caught the 7pm Old Town Trolley evening monuments tour. The Boy had been very excited about staying up late and seeing the monuments lit up at night, but after walking all day and dinner with ice cream, he passed out on the trolley around 8:45! He missed the FDR memorial, woke up to walk over to the Korean War memorial with me, then I piggybacked him over to the Lincoln Memorial so he could see the Capitol, Washington Monument and WWII all lit up. He liked that a lot, but he was so tired he passed right out again as soon as we got back on, so he missed Iwo Jima. Our driver/tour guide was "Mr. Map" and I highly recommend him as a guide. He was extremely knowledgeable, cracked decent jokes, and asked all of us about ourselves (and remembered it all later when he would point things out and refer to us). BabyBeckie had never seen the monuments at night either, and some of them she hadn't seen at all yet, so we both had a good time on the tour (even with the Boy passed out across my lap).
I think that next year we will 1. stay at a different hotel and avail ourselves of the Metro, 2. get a couple books for different authors who will be there ahead of time and make lists of questions on stickies for the books, and 3. just try to see those few authors' presentations and not worry about going near the signing tents. We're definitely arriving early again next year, though, as that seemed to be key for the fun stuff and freebies. The food choices were limited at best. We had ice cream more than once! I don't know if I can talk Hubby into coming with us next year (so DQ can come too), or if this is going to be a Mom-and-Boy activity for another year. We'll see. I'll be interested in attendance estimates for the festival -- it was definitely more crowded than last year.
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