Advertisement
DSC01678
The rows at Arlington cemetery.Hello from the Nations Capital still.
On friday we caught the metro (subway) down to the Pentagon, Changed lines to get there, thought we were pretty good teaching the kids how to read the underground map and actually getting on the right train going the right direction. There's not much to look at from the outside and of course your'e not allowed on the inside. We did walk around to the memorial, for the people who died from the 9/11 terrorist attack, that flew the plane into the Pentagon. Its quite a cool memorial. 153 people died, 59 were on the plane. We had to use the 'bathroom' while we were there, so there's a portacom toilet there. Typical government department.I opened the door to be met by nice cool air conditioned air coming out. Once inside standing on the tile floor, admiring all the money spent on a toilet block and this guy comes in and says "this is flasher than my house" Yep, Yep, Yep!!
Caught the metro along to Arlington Cemetery, got on a bus tour. Stopped to see if John.F.Kennedy's eternal flame on his grave site was still burning, it was.jumped back on the bus up to
DSC01676
The memorial at the Pentagon.One for each person who died. the 'Tomb of the unknown soldier'. Hes not there any more .Some lady went to court to get them exumbed(pardon my spelling).They opened it up, did a DNA test on it. Notified his mum and his remains got sent to her and she buried him at home.So theres no one in the tomb now but I guess the centiment is still the same. The kids were impressed by the gaurd that walks up and down the mat ever so imaculately dressed and does his fancy turns at the ends. Then at 1/2 past the hour , we watched the changing of the gaurd. For us non military people its seems a bit over the top all the dramatic gun wiping and checking his unloaded gun with a white glove, but hey I guess it draws the crowds.
Driving back to the visitors center, you just keep driving past rows and rows of tombstones. As far as the eye can see, a solom reminder as to the sacrifice made by the US forces over the years.
Back on the Metro and it was off to Macca's for a quick lunch. Chips and a shake for lunch, Mmmmm !!
then we walked
DSC01679
Washington Monument in the background, at JFK grave site. over to the White house, Not much to see nowadays. You can only see some of the front of it through the wrought iron fence< while fighting your way through the crowd along the narrow foot path. They still do tours it said but you have to organise that through your local congressman, and then wait a couple of months !! Yeh right.Then we walked back along 'The Mall' to the Washington Monument.The big tall spike. Its different coloured blocks as they ran out of money sometime in the middle of the 1800,s. Then started back up 40 years later with a slightly different colour block. 550ft tall , its still pretty impressive.Just hung there for awhile watching the world go by. They were busy fencing it all off getting ready for the 4th of July celebrations. With some very sore legs we headed back to the 'Smithonian' Metro station were we caught our train on the blue line back to 'One Largo station'. To be met by the guy from the Campground in his chevy van to pick us up.
As we pulled in , we were just in time for 'smores'. So Josh and Tori both grabbed their
DSC01681
The gaurd at the tomb of the unknown soldier. marshmellow sticks we have and ran over to the office area where alot of the camp kids were busy cooking the marshmellows , then putting them between 2 biscuits. Later on at night they had a 'flashlight lollypop hunt' .
HAPPY 4TH OF JULY !! Just another day to us kiwi's. Alot of the people have done up their camp sites and there was a prize for the best decorated one. We just mucked aroundthe campground for most of the day. We got some new neighbours that pulled in at 2.30am last night. Angela and Jennifer. they had 4 kids with them Jade, Hayley,Liam and Avery. Our kids had great fun playing baseball with them. Then we siad were off to the 4th of July celebrations in DC, they said they were going too but didn't realise there was a shuttle from the campground. So we filled up the minivan again and off we went. Going in on the Metro was surprisingly not that busy. Once we got there and started walking around, it was fairly busy. We walked along towards the Washington Monument. Found a space on the grass for our mats and just hung out. Sadly there was
DSC01690
Changing of the gaurd, inspection of the new gaurd. no entertainment we were. Aretha Franklin was up by the Capital Building singing somewhere, but it would have been nice for them to send the sound down the rest of the Mall. Avery entertained us with her singing and dancing routines, they were hillarious.Finding some food was even more fun, It seemed to be in short supply.what was there had run out.The kids wanted to go to the toilet before the fireworks. What a mission that was , they had hundreds of 'Porta potties' but the lines were just as long. Josh wanted to walk over to them by himself, he thought I was being stupid walking over there with him until he went around a bunch of people one way and I went the other. I looked back to see the look on his face, we were only 4 meters away but he couldnt see me amongst the crowd, by thistime is was really chocker.they estimated 1 million people were going to be there. About 10 past nine, just behind the Monument from us, the fireworks started. Everyone stood up, we had a great view point from where we were. As we had expected it was an awesome display
DSC01692
The white house. that just went on and on and got bigger and brighter as it went. 17 minutes they said in the paper that it went for. It was spectacular indeed. Then when it finished you can imagine what happened, It took hours for all these people to get in and they all wanted to get on the subway and get out at the same time.
We stood in a mob at the smithonian station for probably 1/2 hr and went forward about 3 meters. So we asked a cop and see said to head over to another station, were we stood for another hour before finally getting on a train. The Van driver said she would meet us back at the station at 11pm, Ha Ha we got there just on 12. By the time we got home and back to the trailer is was 12.30am. A very big night, but one we won't forget in hurry. Of course any fireworks display we see from now on will never match the 'One in Washington DC' but I'm glad we came to see it.
Had a sleep in this morning, funnily enough. Until Josh remembered it was pancake breakfast over by the
DSC01697
The 'Lincoln memorial. office this morning . So off Kylie and him went. Tori and I just had our usual old 'Chex' for breakfast. The kids spent most of the day playing with the other 4 kids. We gave them some NZ tatoo,s . To which they plastered all over themselves and some pens we bought with us. They live in Louisianna, so we got their addresses and email. So hopefully when we pass on through we'll stop in and say hi.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.133s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 9; qc: 47; dbt: 0.0442s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
