We arrived back home on Friday, September 29 around 5pm. I was unable to blog the last few days of our vacation due to a really flaky internet connection.
The last time I wrote, we were heading into Washington on Tuesday, September 27th to see the sites while my brother-in-law went into work.
We started the day, around 8:10am, by being dropped off on the east side of Arlington Memorial Bridge. It was a beautiful day, and we knew we only had a limited amount of time to see the sites, so we headed into Arlington National Cemetary. There were two things I wanted to see: JFK's gravesite and The Tomb of the Unknowns. As we entered the cemetary, my wife wanted to stop at the visitor's center, but I wanted to simply push on, which we did.
We followed the signs to JFK's site, but were briefly distracted by a cluster of graves that included Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall, Chief Justice Warren Burger, and Admiral Rickover. We finally made it to the burial site of JFK and then on to RFK's burial site. I was surprised at the simplicity of RFK's grave marker; a simple cross and a simple stone that was flush to the ground.
We then made our way to The Tomb of the Unknowns. This was a very powerful experience for me...probably the one place that affected me the most. The only thing I found distracting was the sounds of the jets taking off from Reagan every 30 seconds. Anyway, while my wife was ready to leave after a couple of minutes, I stood my ground, waiting for the changing of the guard. This is a very impressive event to see and I probably could have watched it over and over. The committment and discipline of these men is inspiring.
After Arlington, we hit the Vietnam Wall, the Lincoln Memorial, the Korean War Memorial and the WWII memorial. We walked past the Washington Monument, but neither of us wanted to go into it. Instead of checking out the Capitol building, we decided to venture into town to find something to eat. Someone told us there was a food court in the Reagan Building, so we decided to check it out. After 3 trips through the metal detector (and the removal of my belt), I realized I had my business card holder in my back pocket. :-\ Ooops. At least the security guards had a sense of humor about things.
After lunch, we walked back toward the White House and then rested under a nice, shady tree. Around 2pm, we met my brother-in-law outside of Lafayette Park.
Overall, it was a fun day. The next time we go, we'll try to hit the museums. I'd like to spend more time in Arlington National Cemetary as well.
On the previous day, my brother-in-law and I drove about 90 minutes to Gettysburg. When we got there, it was overcast and rainy. :-\ That really sucked. By the time we got to the last stop on the Auto Tour, it was dark, so overall, our trip was kind of a bust. It was interesting to see places like Little Round Top and of course the monuments were very cool.
On Wednesday, I took some time to re-take 70-315 (which I passed) at a local testing center. After that, we all had lunch and then my family hopped in the car for the 4 1/2 hour drive to Pittsburgh where we stayed until Friday.