Today I'm taking a break from posts about Portugal to share some photos from our weekend trip to Washington DC. Our friends Lana and Dean were in New York last week from San Francisco, and Friday night we all drove down to Washington DC to visit Lana's sister Lauren and her husband Martin. Lauren and Martin recently moved to Bethesda, and incredibly I had never been to Washington DC, so we took a one-day tour of the National Mall followed by dinner and drinks. We didn't have time to tour the many terrific museums, but we did pop into the National Archives to see the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Otherwise, we enjoyed nearly perfect weather for seeing the many monuments in the area. I'd like to return this winter to tour the museums, and I'm sure we'll come back to see the dozens of other monuments that didn't make the cut this year. Many thanks to Lauren and Martin for being terrific hosts, and enjoy the photos! (Note: I've added a few "before & after" shots in here so you can see the unedited original versus the post-processed result. These are indicated in the captions).