Tomorrow I hear there's rumor of two kiddos getting to go see Big Hero Six and then being taken to do some Christmas shopping, but in between all of that, we have two states (kind of) to tackle this week! So without further ado...
I don’t think that the nation’s capital of Washington D.C. deserves
its own week during the state project, but I couldn’t let it just slide by
without a mention. I also don’t want to
do a whole huge usual Monday blog (they take quite a while to write as you
might imagine) but I do want to share a few of the choice items that I’m going
to bring up with the kiddos over the next few days. So Washington D.C.
– you’re up!
To me, the most important thing to impart to Thing 1 and
Thing 2 was that this city was literally designed to serve
as the capital of the nation. French
architect Pierre
Charles L’Enfant’s self-named plan specified that
most streets would be laid
out in a grid. To form the grid, some streets would travel in
an east-west direction, while others would travel in a north-south direction.
Diagonal avenues later named after the states of the union crossed the grid.
The diagonal avenues intersected with the north-south and east-west streets at circles and
rectangular plazas that would later honor notable Americans and provide open
space. There were early disputes between the Northern and Southern states about
where the
capital was to be located, which was eventually
resolved by the passing of the Residence Act in 1790. George
Washington selected the final location (by right of the Constitution) and the
government was set to begin operations from the new
city in 1800.
There are obviously no shortage of landmarks in
D.C. and I’ve had quite the time narrowing it down. But when all was said and done, I went with:
The last thing I wanted to share with the
kiddos was something that is on my personal ‘bucket list’ – a trip to see the
cherry trees bloom at the National Cherry Blossom
Festival! The
first 3,000 trees, located on the National Mall, were originally given to the nation as a gift from Japan in
1912 as a symbol of friendship. (By the way, we gave Japan flowering dogwoods
in return in 1915.) The
festival officially began
in 1935 and is held annually to coincide with the
flowering of the trees. If you, like me, have an interest, make sure to keep an
eye on the Bloom
Watch which helps predict the Peak Bloom
Date which is defined as
the day when 70% of the Yoshino Cherry blossoms are open.
Since we’re already tackling Missouri this
week (and because Washington D.C. is technically not a state) I decided to keep
it at that with the Dynamic Duo. I think
that’s plenty. But just in case you’re
interested, you can find all kinds of fun Washington D.C facts here or here or here. I’ll probably
throw in the oddity about DC this week, but now we’re onward to Missouri! So until then…
Washington DC Fun Fact of the Day: DC residents pay
taxes to the federal government like all citizens of the US. But, they do not
have a voting representative in Congress. So that is why you will see DC
license plates on cars that say “Taxation without Representation.”
