This was going to be a quick one. The playoffs are always tricky to book ahead of time but once the schedule came out for the Pens vs Caps second-round series we saw there was a Saturday game in Washington. Adam had a PD on Friday so it worked out great. We booked our flight and headed to Washington for the weekend.
Friday, April 28, 2017
The flight to Dulles Airport was pretty uneventful but the trip into town was fun as you get your first views of some of the beautiful Washington monuments. Once we checked into the hotel, the Hilton Garden Inn Downtown, we set out to explore the town.
The first stop was the White House. As usual, there were a few protest groups stationed at various spots around the grounds but it was awesome to see the actual building in person.
After the White House, we toured around a bit and checked out a few more landmarks and headed back to the hotel.
Washington Monument as the sun goes down. 
Adam and Abe 
WW II Memorial at sunset.
Saturday, April 29, 2017
We woke up and hit the streets again. There is so much to do within the downtown core with well over 100 monuments, memorials and museums including the world-famous Smithsonian Group of Museums. There was no way we could see everything in the time we had so we hit the highlights.
Museum of National History 
Old Glory – The Original tar Spangled Banner 
Capitol Building 
The Wright Bros display at the Air and Space Museum
After a solid morning of walking, we were getting pretty hungry and thankfully there were a few options nestled in amongst the monuments and museums.
Food truck row offered pretty much any kind of cuisine you want! 
A strange tiny McDonalds. Almost a “pop-up store”.
Washington is home to the most protests and marches of any city in North America. The weekend we were there was a pretty big one. It was called the People’s March for Climate Change and it was estimated that over 200,000 people marched. Fittingly enough it was 91 degrees out and tied an all-time record. There was a large “camp” set up on the Washington Monument grounds and it was really interesting to see all the people gathered and protesting.
Not Trump fans? 
How can you not like Canada?
One of the gatherings featured a display that had travelled the world to various Climate marches. You wrote your greatest fear on a wristband, placed it on the strings and took one that someone else had also written on at another march.
After a great day of monuments, museums and marches we headed back to the hotel to get changed and ready to head to the game. There were lots of Capital jerseys around town all day and it got us pumped for the contest. We headed over to the Capitol One arena about an hour before game time. Our tickets gave us access to the Capitals season ticket holder lounge, a great buffet!
The rink is a great venue and the crowd was really pumped. It was a really fun game to be a Pens fan and we got lots of opportunities to cheer them to victory.
Great use of the hats thrown on the ice after a Hat Trick! 
Winter Classic Display 
Seats were right behind the Pens penalty box. 
Cooler full of pucks in the penalty box. 
Hey Phil…how you doing? 
Good vs Evil. 
Celebrating the Pens 6 – 2 victory
Sunday, April 30, 2017
It was a quick but fun trip and, after a good breakfast at the hotel, we headed to the airport for our return flight. Adam made good use of the time to get caught up on some homework.
