Vacation Road Trip - Getting to DC

We left on December 26th and drove home to drop off Christmas presents and swap out suitcases. Our goal - Florence, South Carolina by nightfall. Unfortunately we were a few hours behind because the car's engine light came on - after getting a valve replaced that regulated fuel and air in the gas tank we were on our way. We finally arrived at our hotel at 2am and just crashed. Up on the 27th, we got back in the car to finish driving to DC. This was by far our longest road trip as a family. Don't the back seat kids look happy to be in the car still? 

We decided on DC this year because Wesley is in 5th grade - the same age as Parker was when he went to DC on a Safety Patrol field trip with South Ocala through Marion County. Wesley is in Safety Patrol too, but Lake County doesn't do a DC trip for their Safety Patrol kids. This social studies major mama thought that was a real shame - so off to DC we went. This was mine and Daryl's fourth time in DC, Parker's second and the first time for Wesley and Davis. 

There was LOTS of traffic once we hit Virginia. We finally got into our condo at 6:30pm, instead of the 4pm we were hoping for. We rented a 2nd floor apartment in a row house off Dupont Circle. The house was originally built in 1910 and underwent a major renovation into separate rental units about 10 years ago.  It was cheaper than a hotel and the street parking permit was definitely cheaper than paying to valet a car at the hotel, or finding one of those lots around town. Plus there was lots of space to spread out and we felt like we were really a part of the neighborhood. 

Here's the pictures of the apartment from the website. The only difference was they added a huge dresser in place of the blue chair in the bedroom and provided and extra air mattress for Parker. The two little boys shared the convertible couch in the living room. 

After unpacking, we walked around the neighborhood - we got our Metro cards for the subway and then found groceries at Whole Foods. We also stumbled upon Foundry UMC along the way.