National Harbor
Ending up spending the end of our day at our National Harbor, and was very pleasantly surprised at what a nice spot it was to walk around. I’ve heard/read it was a great place to hang out but never knew exactly where it was. We took advantage of being nearby downtown at the Air and Space for the day, and ventured off of our usual path home to check it out. It is right off the Woodrow Wilson Bridge over the river from Alexandria on the Maryland side.
It’s is several square blocks in size and has a nice variety of shops, restaurants and waterfront strolling at hand. Annoying that it was 6 bucks to park for two hours at a meeter, but I guess that’s just the way it is, as we had just paid a similar amount downtown at a meter as well. We first stopped and took a seat by the harbor area, while the kids explored a huge outdoor sandbox with an immense buried statue of a man buried in the sand. They had a ball running and playing in the sand and trying to see how high they could climb upon the sculpture.
We also happened upon a store named peeps, with, you guessed it the candy confection called peeps, along with a wall of Mike and Ike’s and several other sugary confections. There were also several other interesting shops to temp the palate: Ben & Jerry’s, Potomac Grocers, and Cake Love–not to mention lots of other restaurants. We settled upon McCormick and Schmick’s mostly because there was no wait, but there were several other alternatives that would have been fun to enjoy. We ended up having a delicious dinner with a really terrific view of the waterfront area as well.
The weather was on the warm side, but still mostly overcast with a chilly breeze. I’d be interested to check it out when the weather’s more conducive to strolling and enjoying being outside. Thumbs up, for sure. A definite add to the list of things to do in the future.