We've hit the homestretch, dear blog readers, as today, we spent our last full day in Washington D.C. Yes, the thought of getting home to the San Fernando Valley does sound enticing... until we looked at the weather forecast and saw it's supposed to be 106° there later this week. Ultra Yikes! (But it will be a dry heat!)

Meanwhile, in our nation's capital, today was actually the most pleasant of all the days we've had so far. Our friend Mr. Humidity hit the road, the sun was out but not oppressive, and we all enjoyed a very lovely morning, afternoon and evening walking around D.C.. All in all, if the weather was like this here all the time? Well, let's just say it would be even cooler than it is. Or not as hot as it is. You know what I mean.

So let's start our day the way all days in D.C. should start: With a trip to a museum! This time, it was the legendary Smithsonian Air and Space Museum that was first up on our timed entry list.

Side note: If you don't make advance plans using “timed entry” ahead of time to get a free "ticket" to the Smithsonian museums, you're gonna have a very disappointing trip to D.C. It's all timed entry now. It's not hard to do, you just have to plan a little bit in advance. (But there are still options for the last minute traveler. Stay tuned…)

The Starship Enterprise. No bloody A, no bloody B, no bloody C...

Back to the Air & Space Museum: Assuming you've made the appropriate plans, and we had, what's the very first thing to greet you when you walk through the door? Yes, the legendary, original 11-foot Starship Enterprise from Star Trek! It's looking a lot better than when I saw her back in the '80s hanging from the rafters. The ship has been restored beautifully, and now even has a little bit of a light show that goes with it every hour on the hour. Truly great to see how well the restoration of this important piece of science fiction history was done.

Of course, it's not science fiction history that's memorialized at this museum - it's science fact! And you can really span some of the most amazing scientific accomplishments of the entire 20th century in a matter of moments. Say you want to see the first airplane ever. Yes, you heard me right, the first airplane ever, the Wright Brothers Flyer is on display here! Or how about the command module (Columbia!) that took Aldrin, Armstrong, and Collins to the moon and back? Yes, the ACTUAL Apollo 11 command module, is right over there by the spacesuit Neil Armstrong wore when he first set foot on the moon. 😳😳😳😳😱😱😱😱🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩

A truly special experience.

It's sometimes mind-blowing to remember that those two events - the first powered flight at Kitty Hawk, and man landing on the moon, took place within 70 years of each other! We went from the very first powered aircraft flight to landing humans on the moon within the span of an average human lifetime. Craziness.

Young Daphne certainly enjoyed herself, wandering through exhibit after exhibit checking out all of the cool science and technology on display. We could barely keep up with her. She also scored a great set of Snoopy astronaut pajamas. Winner!

Even during its lengthy and extensive renovation, I still consider this museum to be a must-visit on any D.C. trip. And it will only get better in years ahead.

Hey, remember when we were talking about timed entry? Well, if you didn't make timed entry plans ahead of time, there still is a chance to get in some of the most popular museums. At 8:15 AM, the National Museum of African American History & Culture releases another set of timed entry passes good for later that day, and we had some time this afternoon, so we set three alarms for 8:15 AM to make sure we were able to grab a set and boom, we had afternoon plans!

*THANK YOU, NMAAHC!! YOU GOT THIS EXACTLY RIGHT! (Backstory in yesterday’s blog!) #NoSurprises*

Oh my gosh, everything you've heard about this museum is true. This is truly the state of the art in modern museum design and execution. Every part of it is imbued with thoughtfulness and purpose. Every decision you make changes your experience at the museum. For example, we started at the very beginning of African-American history in America. That meant a trip all the way down to the third sub-basement and slowly working our way up, past mid-Atlantic slavery, past the Civil War, past the civil rights era, and finally to today, before you reached the surface. Thematic and amazing.

After that incredible journey, we needed a break. And I'm happy to report that the food at the museum, courtesy of Sweet Home Cafe is just as good as you think it should be. I have no doubt that when they were putting this museum together, it was widely agreed that standard museum cafeteria food just wouldn't do to help tell the story of African-Americans in America. And so, they went all out. And we are all luckier for it. The family splurged on a wide sampler platter of dishes, from pulled pork (Carolina style with mustard sauce, naturally), to fried chicken, cornbread, and a variety of sides... The menu here was really, really diverse and really fantastic.

The Mothership has landed …. in Chocolate City!

Then it was off to see some of the more amazing artifacts from their cultural collection. The floor dedicated mostly to music alone is worth the entire trip to the museum. From George Clinton's Parliament/Funkadelic mothership to Prince's guitar, to Chuck Berry's red Cadillac El Dorado - this is truly an inspiring sweep through the broad and remarkable story of black contributions to music in America. Plus, they’ve got a cool area where you can flip through records and DJ a micro-set for the room… C’mon, that’s awesome. And I’m not bragging, but five people right across from me started singing and dancing when my selection popped up. When it comes to DJ’ing skills, I #StillGotIt.

Has it been mentioned enough on this blog just how wonderful these two have been the ENTIRE trip? Like, super fantastic ulta-wonderful? Consider it so mentioned…

The museum section dedicated to sports? Sure, there's Jackie Robinson and Muhammad Ali material, and plenty of it. But there's also a ton of other fascinating stories. I could've spent hours on this floor alone.

All in all, our final museum of the trip turns out to be one of the best of the journey. Highest recommendation and a true must-do for any D.C. visitor. Bravo, National Museum of African American History & Culture!

Did this man just order a Philly cheesesteak from a hamburger restaurant … and come away happy with the decision? Yes. Yes he did.

After that, it was back to the hotel room to grab some rest. Then we recharged with a burger, dinner and milkshakes at the famous "Z-Burger" - said to be President Clinton's favorite burger in the District. (We can see why... Delicious.)

And then it was time for night monuments: The sequel! Yes, we had such a great time last night running around by ourselves basically at some of America's fantastic federal landmarks that tonight, we made a similar journey through the monuments and memorials located near the Lincoln Memorial. Here to tell the tale is our Mackie Campbell, who will give us her rundown of tonight's night monument fun.

Tonight we saw lots and lots of memorials. Since we liked seeing the Capitol and Supreme Court at night so much last night we decided to do the same for some memorials today.

We started off at the MLK memorial. It was really nice, and the quote on the side of MLK's statue makes you really see the purposeful design of the memorial. (It's from the "I Have a Dream" speech: "Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.")

Then we went over to the FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt memorials. They were both very nice and serene, but were poorly lit for the hour at which we were visiting them.

After that we walked over to the Vietnam and Korean War memorials. Both of which were beautiful and extremely touching. The Vietnam War Memorial has some fantastic statues to the side of the bulk of the monument, which I highly recommend you go check out.

Ending our touring of the memorials with the ever so goofy Albert Einstein Memorial. It was very, very fun. We read more about the night sky image on the floor of the memorial. We learned that it depicts the sky two days after the beloved Emily Campbell was born. If you have not seen that memorial already, you totally should. You got to see it to believe it!

Three of the greatest thinkers of our time contemplate the mysteries of the universe.

And with that I will hand it back over to the words of my beloved father: Mr. Colin Campbell!

What more needs to be said after that? Great wrap up, Mackie!

I will add one more little tidbit: after we called our ride-share for the final time of the day, and we were walking away from the Einstein memorial, Daphne said to the giant statue, "Bye Dr. Einstein. You are a really great scientist and you changed the world and you're super smart." A fair summary of the man's career, don't you think?

And that'll do it for tonight, dear blog readers. It's a travel day tomorrow as we finally head back home, but we will try to get one last update out before we wrap this blog up for the time being. We really want to thank you all for reading along with us. It's been great hearing from some of you about how you've enjoyed it! And for those who haven't told us how much you've enjoyed it, we're just going to go ahead and assume that you are really, really, really enjoying it anyway. In fact, you're probably enjoying it so much that you're too overwhelmed (with joy) to tell us how much you're enjoying it. Yeah, I'm sure that's it.

It's late. I'm getting punchy. Time to sleep, more tomorrow!