**First of all, I highly recommend the book we have used on this journey. It is called "Kids Love to Travel and we have the Virginia version. It is broken into states and down by areas of the state. It is then in alpha order. It has been a GREAT resource. It is written by a great homeschooling family that RV fulltime.**
If you would like to start at the beginning, you can click on Day 1, Day 2, Day 3,Day 4 and
Day 5.
We are having so much fun! It is hard to believe that we have been gone a week tomorrow. There were a few things that we made decisions on today. First of all was the weather. It is supposed to rain the next several days, so we decided to make sure we did the outdoor things today, while it was nice. The other good decision we made was doing Tourmobile. Tourmobile takes you to speicific places with a bus and has great people telling you facts, etc. You have on and off priveldges all day. We decided to do Arlington National Cemetery with DC combination. The Kids Love to Travel book that I mentioned before was great in this. Arlington is HUGE! There are over 325,000 grave stones. It is massive and a ton of walking. We are glad we took the recommendation.
First of all, today is a special day for me and I can't think of any other way to celebrate my birthday than spending quality time with my guys. I was also blessed that my hubby listened to me, and got me something I was wanting for our trip, a new lens for my camera. It is a 70-300 mm, so I was thrilled and used it a TON today. You will see many very close up shots with it.
So we went to Arlington. Our first stop was the grave of JFK and his wife Jaqueline Kennedy Onassis and their two babies, a girl (stillborn and unnamed, which I found interesting) and a boy (Jack).
From there we went to the Amphitheatre and behind there is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. We waited a little while for the Changing of the Guard, so we did some other walking around.
Amphitheatre in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier:
The Changing of the Guard Ceremony:
Joshua, a Titanic enthusiast, looked for and tracked down the only Titanic person in the Cemetery (to the surprise of the tour guides, who didn't know someone from the Titanic was buried there). #1734 is Archibald Butt. He was not only from GA, but he served with president Taft on his cabinent and went down with the Titanic. His body was never recovered.
We also saw the grave of Robert Todd Lincoln, the son of Abraham Lincoln and his wife. We also saw the mast from the USS Maine that was used Spanish war.
We also saw the memorials to the Challenger and Columbia. The Challenger one, especially moved me and brought me back to when it happened. We stayed for the ceremony and left. Very well done.
Challenger and Columbia memorials:
We then headed up the hill to Arlington House. Now not only was it on a fabulous hill, where we got a terrific view of DC downtown area, but it was the home of Robert E. Lee and his family for many years. His children were born there (6 of 7) and once he left to fight in the Civil War he never returned. If you have followed our blog, you know that our little Luke is a Robert E. Lee enthusiast. He was so excited. There is a small museum in the back. The only bad thing is that it is going under renovation and restoration. The furniture has been removed but there are pictures of what it looked like. The finishing is dependent on funding and won't be done until 2009-2010.
Arlington House Pictures:
View of Downtown DC from the top of the Arlington House (using my new lens :o):
We left there, only to realize that we watched our bus drive away. Grr! They only come around once every 30 minutes. But the guy at the desk told us that we could be down there in 5 minutes. More like 10, but as we were getting down there, we missed the bus for DC (within a few minutes! GRRR!) We got some snacks while waiting and headed to DC. Our first stop was the Lincoln memorial.
(The boys on the top steps of the Lincoln Memorial with the Washington monument in the background).
(Washington Monument from the Lincoln Memorial)It was larger than I thought it was so cool. The Gettysburg Address and Emancipation Proclamation are inscribed on the inner walls. It is also up on a hill where we got some nice shots of the Washington Monument and DC. Lots and lots of steps though. From there, we went to nearby spots, like the Vietnam memorial and the WWII memorial. Very moving.
Vietnam Wall:
World War II memorial:
We waited for the bus and then headed for the White House.
White house pictures:
We were able to see the White House Christmas tree and lots of people inside too.
When I questioned all the people "dressed up", I guess you have to do that to take a tour. That was fun and exciting just to see it, but something more exciting happened later. We went to the visitors center and looked around and decided to come outside. It was a good thing, because we realized that we were on the last bus to the Arlington Cemetery and we knew we had to be out of the parking lot there by 6pm.
Pictures on our way out at dusk! BEAUTIFUL! I am happy with these pictures in particular:
We got on the bus, and got more aquanited with the town of DC and taking more fabulous pictures. As we were coming around the corner, I saw our tour guide scrambling to get her camera and I heard "helicopters!" from the driver. When I asked what was going on, they then let me know that it was "Marine One". There were three of them (the outer two were Secret Service and there were other Secret Service all in black on the top of the buildings). For those of you who aren't aquainted with this, the President, Our Commander In Chief, George W. Bush, was in Marine One. I will post photos here. I was scambling to get my camera out too which was in my camera bag.
(William T. Sherman near the capitol)
(Secret service at the top of the Commerce Building).It was an exhausting day, but good. We are looking forward to exploring more in depth tomorrow.
