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Welcome to Sleepy Shorts Short Stories for
Bedtime. This podcast is brought to you

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by I have a story to tell
you that will help take your mind off

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of all your worries and cares.
You will listen and relax and drift peacefully

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into sleep. It's time to turn
off the lights and snuggle into your bed.

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Find your most comfortable position there.
Now take a few seconds to relax

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your mind. It's time to sleep. Time to rest and rejuvenate our minds

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and bodies. In order to prepare
our bodies for sleep, let's do a

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couple of muscle relaxation and breathing exercises. I want you to inhale for a

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count of three, and while doing
so, tighten all your muscles ready and

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inhale one two three, Hold your
breath, keep your muscles tense. Now

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exhale to account of six. While
you relax your muscles one two, three,

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four five six, feel your body
sinking deeper into your bed. Let's

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do this one more time. Take
a deep three second breath as you tighten

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your muscles one two three, hold
it now, relax and exhale to account

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of six. One two, three, four, five six. Let your

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body sink even deeper into your bed
again. It's time now for your sleepy

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short. Let me help you fall
us sleep A day in Washington DC.

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Have you ever spent a day in
Washington, d C? We have,

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and in tonight's Sleepy Shorts episode,
I want to tell you all about it.

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We rode the Metro in from the
Dunloring Metro station, headed for the

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National Mall in Washington, d C. The Metro was busy and loud,

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people riding escalators up and down looking
at maps as they tried to figure out

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what train to take and where to
exit. We got on the Orange Line

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train and sat and watched people getting
on and off as we made the multiple

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stops to get to our destination.
The people on the train were an eclectic

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group of tourists, businesspeople, and
your average everyday travel I always want to

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ask them where they are going and
where they are from, but we just

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sat and people watched for the thirty
minute ride. Capital South was our first

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stop, and we got off there
with water bottles in hand and excitement to

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explore. From the Metro station,
we headed north to get to Independence Avenue

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that took us past a couple of
huge pillared house of Representative office buildings and

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the United States Postal Service. We
could see the side of the United States

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Capital from there. This white building
is massive and beautiful, with arches and

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pillars and copper domes. One day
we would like to go inside and take

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a tour, but for that day
we were just sightseeing. The trees were

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all in full loom with pink and
white cherry blossoms. The hundreds of cherry

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trees were a gift from the Japanese
back in nineteen twelve. We marveled at

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how old these trees were, and
how beautiful with their dainty blossoms and horizontal

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bark striations on their trunks. Oak
trees also abound at the National Mall.

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We wondered how old some of those
must have been. Surely at least two

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hundred years old, wouldn't you think. We wondered what kind of stories these

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gentle ancient trees would tell if they
could. The sidewalks weren't terribly crowded,

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and the weather was pleasantly warm,
with a cool, soft breeze. After

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a couple of minutes of walking past
the Capitol Building, we came to the

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United States Botanic Garden. It has
a huge domed greenhouse is home to over

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ten thousand living plant specimens. I
had heard that some of those plants are

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over one hundred and sixty years old
and that they are hand watered every day.

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As we walked along the outdoor gardens, there were actually a few different

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species of cacti. We wondered how
the cacti managed to stay alive in what

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can be such a humid climate.
But these cacti weren't really thriving, not

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like the hundreds of plants and trees
that love the humidity of Northern Virginia.

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Continuing down the street, we passed
by the First Lady's water Garden, the

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rose Garden, and the butterfly Garden. So many shapes and colors and scents

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abound there, along with too many
different species of birds to even count.

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Blue jays, cardinals, sparrows,
finches, and other birds we couldn't identify.

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Just past the gardens, we came
to the National Museum of the American

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Indian It looks like a huge bige
rock formation, with the edges blown smooth

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and round by the wind. It
is surrounded by four acres of wetlands,

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cattails, ponds, and aquatic plants. In front of the building, there

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was a life size teepee, which
of course had to serve as the backdrop

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for a few selfies. The Smithsonian
National Air and Space Museum was next Inside

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we found the Apollo eleven command module, which landed on the Moon, and

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a moon rock. We also found
every type of flying spacecraftaginable, from the

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Right Brothers flyer of nineteen oh three
to modern jets and military aircraft planes made

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of wood and metal, with every
different design imaginable. Some looked as though

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they never could have taken flight,
and others looked as though they could fly

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forever. We headed farther down the
street and came across a cylinder shaped building

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called the Hershorn Museum. There are
over twelve thousand pieces of modern and contemporary

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art in that building. One day
we would like to come back and take

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a little more time perusing through the
rooms full of beautiful, imaginative and creative

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artwork. At the next block we
found a huge red brick building. We

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thought it would house some amazing artifacts
or something, but it turned out it

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is closed to the public and rented
out for private events only. We found

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out this was the Arts and Industries
building, and this was the very first

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national mall museum. It's too bad
it isn't used for the public anymore.

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Our next few stops were the Smithsonian
National Museum of African Art, the Smithsonian

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Castle, and the Arthur M.
Sackler Gallery. The African Art Museum has

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over nine thousand works of art and
relics inside its gray walls and green copper

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rooftop. The Smithsonian Castle really did
look like a big red castle, but

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unfortunately only administrative offices were inside.
But the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery was

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very impressive. It is actually the
National Museum of Asian Art. Beautiful sculptures,

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exquisite jade from China, and modern
pots and vases from Japan line the

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walls in this museum. We kept
walking along Independence Avenue and came upon the

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cutest farmer's market. Who would expect
to find a farmer's market in downtown Washington,

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d C. We sure didn't,
but they had an array of organic

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fruits and vegetables and colorful herbs and
flowers. We will be sure to go

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back sometime. Just past the market
was a big concrete bridge spanning from one

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side of the road to the other. We found out. This was one

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of the two United States Department of
Agriculture pedestrian arches that serve as walkways between

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the two USDA buildings. The buildings
themselves are beige colored stone with sculptures embedded

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in the exterior of cows and sheep. After we passed under the second pedestrian

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bridge and crossed fourteenth Street, we
could see the beautiful lawns of Constitution Garden

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with tourists strolling on paths that connect
to different memorials. The Washington Memorial was

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there, jutting up out of the
ground with its cream colored brick and pointy

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top. There is an elevator in
there, and we were told that originally

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it was thought that an elevator rising
that high would be unsafe for women and

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children, so they were not allowed
in. Also, that original elevator took

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along twenty minutes to get to the
top. We decided to skip an elevator

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ride and continue walking toward the tidal
Basin. The title basin is a man

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made reservoir that releases two hundred and
fifty million gallons of water twice a day.

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Today, the basin was covered with
Happy Life jacket wearing tourists in paddle

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boats, enjoying the warm sun and
cool breeze. There was a lemonade vendor

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there, and we bought two large
lemonades to quench our thirst and continued on

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our walk. The World War Two
memorial caught our attention as we sipped our

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lemonades. It's a huge monument with
granite pillars and arches surrounding a large fountain.

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The splashing of the cool fountain water
invited us closer, so we decided

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to go take a more detailed look. We discovered that the granite pillars were

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easily fifteen to twenty feet tall and
had inscriptions on them. We also found

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a large wall with thousands of gold
stars covering it. It was hard to

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leave the serenity of this memorial,
but we still had a few more places

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to visit. We strolled down the
sidewalk under the tall cherry trees toward the

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Martin Luther King Junior Memorial. This
memorial features a thirty foot tall sculpture of

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doctor Martin Luther King Junior, standing
just past two other huge slabs of granite,

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looking solemnly out over the tidal basin. There were many tourists here taking

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pictures and smiling and talking with one
another. We spent a few minutes looking

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out over the tidle basin with Doctor
King before we continued on to the final

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destination on our journey. At this
point we were happy to be nearing the

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end of our explorations for the day
because we were tired, yet we were

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pleased with what we had seen so
far. The Lincoln Memorial was our last

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stop. It is a giant Pillard
memorial at the top of a huge staircase.

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Within the memorial is a larger than
life statue of Abraham Lincoln sitting on

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a chair and looking out over the
reflecting pool in Constitution Gardens. We sat

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down on the steps and joined Abraham
Lincoln and looking out over the shimmering pool.

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As the sun began to set,
It felt good to rest our feet

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As we chatted about the things we
had seen. From our perch on the

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steps, we could see the huge
Washington Memorial reaching toward the sky just past

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the reflecting pool. The crowds of
tourists were starting to disperse, getting into

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their tour buses and driving away.
It wasn't long until we were two of

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the last tourists there. We sat
in silence, listening to the breeze,

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and taking in the scenery and beauty
all around us. This was a trip

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we would not soon forget, and
as we finally walked back to the metro

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station by moonlight, we promised each
other we would do it again. Good

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Night, m m h