Washington D.C.

During my week of vacation, we drove down and met my parents in Washington, D.C., to do a little sightseeing. Completely unplanned it happened to be Memorial Day weekend so we ended up getting to see some things that aren't normally going on. We got around by subway and tons of walking.

Our first day there we hit a couple of museums. Caleb's favorite was the air and space museum. We went to the National Archives and saw the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights. We also went to the Holocaust museum. It was very crowded and very sobering.

Our second day was all about memorials. In the morning we went to Arlington National Cemetary. Because of Memorial Day, all of the grave markers had flags. While there we watched the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. And then they also did a couple of wreath ceremonies That evening we went to a improv play at the Kennedy Center and had a neat view of as schools presented wreaths to lay at the tomb and they played taps. Next we went to the Washington monument, WWII memorial, Thomas Jefferson, and FDR memorials. D.C. at night from the top of the building.

Our third day we went to the Lincoln and Korean War Memorials. At the Vietnam war memorial we saw a presentation by a group of veterans in memory of people they had served with. A park ranger stood on top of the monument and played taps. We went to the National Museum of the American Indian. There they were also doing a presentaion in the atrium. We ate lunch there--they had a huge variety of native food from different parts of the country. Then as we were walking around we found out that there was going to be a dress rehersal for the PBS Memorial Day concert on the lawn of the Capitol. This was open to the public and so we waited around to watch. It was pretty neat. A few parts were kind of funny because the real performers weren't there and the stand-ins were so different.

The next day we headed home. When we got home we watched the concert on tv to see how it was different from what we had seen the night before. It was a very fun and busy trip. Thanks Mom and Dad.

One other funny thing about the trip was that there was an annual motorcycle rally "Rolling Thunder" that weekend. This means that there were tons of bikers. Caleb and Dad had to check out a few of the crazier bikes.