Another day of travel.  It is a 7 hour drive or so from Myrtle Beach to DC.  (longer if you hit traffic)
Quick breakfast in the hotel and then on the road.  This having individual bags for each hotel stop is working out great, although you must be very organized to pull if off, and the packing stage is difficult and time consuming.  The driving is beautiful.  Everything is so green and the freeway is just lined with trees.
We pulled off in Fredericksburg to grab lunch and pick up an EZ pass for getting us over the toll roads quickly!  We remember the time years ago before we had children when we were out east and we picked the toll lane that said "exact change" for the $2 fee because we had two $1 bills.  We figured that meant we had exact change.  No, they meant CHANGE!  as in coins.  Very embarrassing for us to realize that we did not have that and we had to get out of our car and ask the other cars to back up so we could get out of that lane and into another lane.  Stupid us from the west coast with no toll roads. Anyway, this time we are legit with our own auto pay device mounted on our car!  Anyway, Fredericksburg has a lot of civil war history stuff.  George Washington's mother and brother and sister lived there and he lived there as a young man.  Some of the fiercest fighting of the civil war happened near here as it was centered between headquarters of both the union and confederate armies.  Over 100,000 soldiers lost their lives near here.
Traffic getting into DC was slow (that is what happens when you are driving at 6 pm in the city).  The roads in DC are crazy!  Everything twists and turns and is one way.  We stayed at the Holiday Inn Capitol.  We got a packaged deal with parking included (parking in the city is expensive) and it was great.  The hotel was just across the street from the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.  We checked into the hotel and then prepared to set off on foot to see the monuments.  We came downstairs and saw that it had decided to start raining.  A quick change of plans and we grabbed the car and drove down to the Abraham Lincoln monument.  Abby just took her shoes off and left them in the car so they wouldn't get wet.  She decided she could run barefoot and free through the rain and I was just fine with that.  We were outside anyway.  So Lincoln was our first stop.  We left our car parked there and walked past the WWII monument to the Washington monument.  (They seem closer than they feel when you walk them!). By now it was after 9 so we missed being able to go to the top--Bryan was so disappointed because we have never been up.  We walked past the White House but by then we had tired feet and it was still raining, so Bryan and James lovingly ran to the car while us girls huddled under a tree and they picked us up.  We drove around the city for just a little bit and then back to the hotel for a late night dinner in the restaurant there and then to bed.  Tomorrow is going to be a FULL day!!