Throughout my travels I have been plagued by the same old problem. Everywhere I've gone, there's been a time limit and I've had to leave feeling sad about the list of exciting things I could have done with more time.

In Washington DC that time limit was extreme: two days to see the whole city, including its long list of fascinating museums and memorials. Sleeping in went out the window. At the end of it, we were stuffed.

Washington DC was an amazing experience. Tim and I were at our geeky best wandering through museums, reading about old presidents, pretending we were spies (more about that later).

Bad planning meant a couple of minor disappointments, like having exactly 40 minutes to see the three level Natural History Museum.

DC can only be described as epic; the city was beautiful. At every turn there were cherry blossoms blooming and sprawling green hills.

I was stunned by the fields of perfect tulips in such vibrant colours which were scattered throughout the city. The monuments were incredible.

The museums demand days' worth of your attention and I must admit to crying in at least two of them because they were so powerful. But I'll write more about that in the next few posts...

Next stop: DC's Spy Museum, where you can pretend you're James Bond, or a guy called Mike from Waipu.

Check out more photos from my trip in my Flickr album.

Find out about Washington DC.

Read more of Kelly's blogs.