Where the Dead Meet the Dogs in DC

It is jarring the first time you see a dachshund lower its haunches and poo right next to a tombstone. Some people say it's disrespectful. Others say the dogs saved Washington, DC's Congressional Cemetery.

Founded in 1807, the burial ground had become a forlorn place of crack deals and toppled monuments by the 1990s. But then a group of locals had an idea: turn the graveyard into a members-only dog park, and use the fees to restore the site.

It's now a lovely spot to ramble, and the cemetery has done a fab job documenting the dead. Pick up maps at the entrance to find famed civil rights heroes, global explorers, beer brewers, War of 1812 officers, and loads of other people you should know. Favorite spirits to seek out:

* Mathew Brady: The Civil War photographer is known as the father of photojournalism. He took the picture of Lincoln that's now on the $5 bill.

* Belva Lockwood: She ran for US president in 1884 as the Equal Rights Party's candidate. Yes, she was aware women didn't have voting rights at the time. She still got 4000 votes.

* J Edgar Hoover: The infamous FBI director has a grave that's surrounded by a fence and faces DC's jail.

Just watch out for loping black labs, stick-chasing Yorkies and other members of the K9 Corps patrolling the stony rows. Incidentally, it's a year-long waiting list to join the pack.

Top 5 Museums a Zombie Would Love

The Walking Dead had record-breaking ratings for its premiere on Sunday. Zombies are hot. Zombies are everywhere. But when they're done face-eating, what do zombies do for entertainment?

Here are the top 5 museums a zombie would love:

1. Indiana Medical History Museum: The room inside an old insane asylum filled with brains in jars is like a cannibal candy shop.

2. Philadelphia's Mutter Museum: Einstein's braaaain is here, in 20-micron-thick slices.

3. Cornell's Wilder Brain Collection: The smorgasbord of juicy lobes includes doctors, suffragists and serial killers.

4. National Zoo: Zombie pets will lip-smack at the pickled brains, from pygmy hippos to blue whales, white-tailed deer to red foxes.

5. Living Dead Museum: This one's for reanimated corpses with a sense of humor. It's set in the house where Night of the Living Dead was filmed and is stuffed with rotting legs, eyeball-less faces and other movie props. 

Photo from jaded-ink

Presidential Pets: Hippos, Badgers & Cows (Oh My)

As Bo Obama, the presidential pooch, settles in to his second term of posing for White House Christmas cards and greeting Blue Room visitors, it's a good time to reflect on his predecessors. There's Barney the terrier, who bit reporters for George W. Bush. And Clinton's furry pals Socks the cat and Buddy the Labrador. But others in the first menagerie have been a bit more peculiar:

*  Adams-Hoover alligators - The Marquis de Lafayette gifted John Quincy Adams with a gator, which Adams housed in the White House bathtub. A century later Herbert Hoover outdid him by having two pet alligators that waddled the West Wing.

*  Josiah the badger - In 1903, a girl in wee-town Kansas asked the visiting Teddy Roosevelt if he would like a badger. "I said I would," and so Josh (Teddy's nickname for his new pet) rode the train back to Washington with the prez, joining his hog, rat, macaw and one-legged rooster.

*  Pauline Wayne the cow - A Wisconsin senator gave Pauline, a bodacious Holstein, to William Howard Taft, who let her graze the White House lawn throughout his term. The trade-off? Miss Wayne provided milk for the first family.

*  Billy the pygmy hippo - "Hmm," thought rubber maker Harvey Firestone. "What'll I do with this pygmy hippo that's wandered onto my Liberian rubber plantation? I know: I'll give it to Calvin Coolidge!" For the record, Coolidge already owned a wallaby, a duiker and a raccoon.

For more on Washington, check out recent posts on DC's top 10 free things to do; the city's scandal sites; and the lowdown on its giant hairballs and bong museums.

DC's Most Peculiar Museums

The Smithsonian grabs all the glory, its multiple venues rising up around the Mall like an educational fortress. But where are the giant hairballs and handcrafted mayonnaise-jar bongs? Here:

DEA Museum - One minute you're watching a video called One Sniff Can Kill, the next you're admiring an array of tightly rolled doobies. The federal, taxpayer-funded Drug Enforcement Administration curates the wares (located in the agency's lobby), which range from counterculture propaganda to undercover pimp gear like rabbit-fur jackets. Read more here.

National Museum of Health and Medicine - You might want to go light on breakfast before visiting the brains, spines and other body parts in jars. The stomach-shaped hairball leaves a lasting impression, as does Lincoln's assassination bullet and bits of his skull.

Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary Museum - Antique glass medicine bottles and Martha Washington's Scouring Compound line the shelves of the 1792 shop.

Woodrow Wilson House - While it's swell to see how genteel Washingtonians lived and socialized in this 1920s home, the chatty docents are the real draw. They spill the beans on today's neighborhood elite, everything from which ambassadors shack up in their embassies illegally, to spot-on directions to the Clintons' nearby home (recognizable by the muscular Secret Service dudes sitting out front in SUVs and staring you down).

This is part 3 of a DC series. Part 1 covers DC's top 10 free things to do. Part 2 covers where Mayor Barry smoked crack, Nixon wiretapped and other scandal sites.

DC's Top 5 Sites for Political Intrigue & Scandal

Whaddya know? They're all hotels.

Watergate - Perhaps you've heard of the chi-chi apartment-hotel complex on the riverfront? Hint: a little break-in occurred here in 1972, something to do with Richard Nixon and wiretaps. Monica Lewinsky, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Condi Rice have all lived at Watergate, despite the sad 60s architecture.

Renaissance Mayflower Hotel - J Edgar Hoover ate lunch here every day for 20 years. John F Kennedy reportedly sampled the charms of the fairer sex here. And NY Governor Eliot Spitzer infamously rendezvoused with a call girl here (room 871).

Washington Hilton - This is where John Hinckley tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981. Hoping to impress the actress Jodie Foster, the disturbed young man shot Reagan, his press secretary and an FBI agent near the T St NW entrance.

Westin Washington DC City Center (formerly the Vista Hotel) - In 1990 DC mayor Marion Barry was caught puffing crack cocaine in room No 727. The FBI had a surveillance camera inside that also captured Barry uttering his timeless quote - 'Bitch set me up!' - in reference to ex-model (and police informant) Hazel 'Rasheeda' Moore, who was with him.

Willard InterContinental Hotel - President Grant coined the term "lobbyist" here to describe the many political wranglers trolling the lobby. You'll still find quite a few of them in the hotel bar, swirling single-malt Scotches and determining your next tax hike.

This is part 2 of a week-long series on DC. Part 1 reveals where to see nuclear missiles, the gun that shot Abe, and 8 other awesome things for free.

Top 10 Freebies in Washington, DC

The spotlight swings to DC on January 21 for President Obama's inauguration. Just so happens I co-wrote Lonely Planet's new DC guidebook, so for the next week I'm going to post stories about the city. First up: my favorite freebies in town.

1. Smithsonian Institution - It's actually a collection of 19 museums, all gratis thanks to an eccentric Englishman named James Smithson (more on him later). Top draws are the rocket-fueled National Air and Space Museum and the dinosaur-and-diamond-stuffed National Museum of Natural History.

2. National Gallery of Art - It takes two massive buildings to hold the trove of paintings, and sculptures. Monet? da Vinci? Pollock? All here, plus a trippy tunnel connecting the two sections.

3. Lincoln Memorial - Massive Abe sits and gazes from his neoclassical temple. And you can stand spot-on where Martin Luther King Jr gave his 'I have a dream' speech.

4. National Archives - Gawp at John Hancock's, er, John Hancock scrawled across the real-deal Declaration of Independence. The Constitution and Bill of Rights unfurl alongside it.

5. Ford's Theatre - See where John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln that fateful night in April 1865. The basement museum shows artifacts such as the murder weapon.

6. Capitol - Button-down guides take you through the mighty, white-domed sanctum of Congress, cluttered with busts, statues, frescoes and people in power suits.

7. Bureau of Engraving and Printing - Though the Treasury tour is about money, it won't be taking any of yours. Watch millions of dollars as they're printed, cut and inspected.

8. Library of Congress - The world's largest library is more than a stack of books. It's a museum with 500-year-old world maps, historic photographs, concerts and film screenings.

9. Kennedy Center - No dough for a big-ticket show? Fear not. The Millennium Stage hosts a free performance each evening at 6pm. Could be anyone from the National Symphony to a gospel group or Indian dance troupe.

10. Cultural Tourism DC - It provides free maps, apps and audio for DIY tours around the city that uncover civil rights sites, espionage hot spots and other historic places.

Museum Day Outcast #2: DEA Museum

DEA's homemade bong collection

Beaded necklaces + bongs = trouble

DEA agent's undercover snakeskin shoes in Detroit circa 1970

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Museum in Arlington, Virginia, is not exactly known for its nuance. Tucked in the lobby of the US agency tasked with fighting drug use and smuggling, it wags a pointy finger. "Everything associated with drugs is bad! Everyone associated with them should go to jail for a long time!" the exhibits practically scream.

Then again, it's the only federal museum in the country with a homemade bong collection. Exhibits on hippies, head shops and drug dealer fashion supplement the pipes.

Brains in Jars

Brain tourism: it's a travel trend, in case you didn't know.

I first came across brains in jars a few months ago at the forlorn, barbed-wire-enclosed Indiana Medical History Museum, located in the state's old insane asylum. Tours roam the former pathology lab and show how early medicine was practiced, from the cold-slabbed autopsy room to the eerie specimen room. Pickled brains fill the shelves of the latter. Each is tagged with its defect: hydrocephalus, kicked by a horse, syphilis...

Unique? Not really. Lima, Peru, has a Brain Museum with over 3000 brains in jars. Philadelphia's Mutter Museum boasts Einstein's brain (in slices). Yale has 650 brains on display. Cornell has lots of lobes, too - though it says "brain collecting has dimmed" since the 1970s.

Tell that to Washington DC's National Zoo. It has whole cabinets of brains in jars, from pygmy hippos to blue whales, white-tailed deer to red foxes. Because nothing says "fun!" to kids like a roomful of dead animal organs.