Holiday Washington DC in Nov 2025: Day 8 – Late Afternoon in Washington DC

By Nige on November 16, 2025 at 8:12 pm
Type: Post
Story: Holiday Washington DC in Nov 2025 Category: Travel
Tags: Hilton | Holidays | USA | Washington DC

From the Air and Space Museum at Dulles Airport, we picked up some fuel and drove into the centre of Washington DC.

Initially, we stopped off at the Hilton Garden Inn, Washington Downtown to get keys to our room and to dump our bags.

Our assigned room (1201) was not ready, so the hotel moved us into 617, which was also a one-bed suite.

Then we drove on to the Westin Downtown to drop off the car.

The Hertz office was not open on a Sunday, so we took plenty of photos and dropped off our keys at the front desk.

On the way back to the hotel we admired the work they had done on installing the decorations for the festive season.

The Christmas tree that was being erected was now complete and the popular leaf blower was in action moving leaves from one place to another.

We didn’t hang around in our room for too long.

We decided to wander down to the Mall and to have a look at the Capitol and to check out the Botanical Gardens which had reopened after the Government shutdown.

Although it was relatively warm, there was a biting wind blowing across DC.

It made walking a real effort and made us question whether we really needed to leave our room.

It was evident that everything was now open based on the number of people out on the streets. It was a lot busier than early last week when everything was shut.

But we were pleased with results of our commitment.

Although the botanical gardens dis not compare well to some that we have seen in Singapore and Sydney, it was free and was staffed by some very excited volunteers.

We walked back to 14th Street and grabbed a booth in The Cheesecake Factory (TCF). This was a record for us. We had spent five nights in DC and for four of those nights, we ate at TCF!

Tonight, we started off with a variation on our pina coladas, without the ice being crushed.

The idea was to make it less cold, but actually it just made it taste more alcoholic!

That proved to be a problem for one of our party on the way back to the hotel!

We started off with chicken tacitos, which were gorgeous as always. Although, I think it was bizarre that some of the ingredients were not nice (e.g. the mint sauce), but when combined with everything else, the dish was amazing.

Vick went for a skinnylicious steak medallions with veg and mash, which she really enjoyed.

I went for the steak tacos with rice and black beans, which I had no complaints about.

We both took our favourite cheesecakes back to the hotel, which was a challenge for the Vickster after some heavy drinking at TCF!

The end of our final full day in Washington DC and we were both looking forward to getting back to see our pussies.

We had managed to book the Washington Monument at 9:30am tomorrow, so we were looking forward to that!

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Holiday Washington DC in Nov 2025