We bought tickets for a tour bus which travels through the cemetery and through the city, going by all the places of interest. There was a tour director on board who narrated things we were going by and they would stop to let you off at various places, then you could catch another one to continue on to another site.
At Arlington, we saw President Kennedy’s grave site with the eternal flame. Jackie Kennedy is buried beside him, as well as the two infants they had lost. Robert Kennedy was buried nearby, and Edward (Teddy) was beyond that. We visited the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and watched the changing of the guard there.
We saw a funeral taking place, with the Honor Guard marching along with the horse drawn coffin and the accompanying cars following. They said there are approximately 25 to 27 funerals daily taking place there. It was all solemn, dignified and thought provoking.
We left Arlington and went back by the Lincoln Memorial to see it in the daytime. We also walked by the Vietnam Memorial Wall which is very impressive with all the names of those who died inscribed dating from 1959 thru 1975.
Since they are still adding names of veterans who have died from traumas related to their service there, I guess they get added into the year in which they served in Vietnam. There are over 58,000 names on the wall.
We then walked to the WWII memorial.
As we approached, we could see it was quite crowded, and as we got closer, we saw there were lots of people in yellow shirts or jackets. The yellow shirts and jackets were worn by WWII veterans from Iowa who had gathered there. Most of them were accompanied by wives, children or grandchildren. Many were accompanied by or being helped by men and women in uniform who had apparently volunteered to help welcome the veterans. The whole morning had been very solemn and thought provoking, but these guys just seemed to be enjoying seeing lots of old friends. It was a good lift for the spirit.
We walked to the White House area. The back of the White House had a large tent set up on the lawn so we couldn’t see it very well from there. We did eventually get around to the front side which had a better view.
While we were there, a siren sounded and a group of big black cars came out of the White House gates, but we had no way of knowing who was in any of the cars. I guess we’ll just assume it was the President.
Have you noticed how often I said “we walked”? Believe me, we walked and walked. We finally got back on the tour bus and finally rode to the Smithsonian Museum of American History. We will probably be going to some of the other Smithsonian Museums when Lora and her family are here. They will be arriving on Wednesday (tomorrow).
We left the Smithsonian and headed back to find the Metro Station to come back to the campground when we went past the National Archives where they had the original Declaration of Independence on a special display. So we stopped there for a little while and now we can say we did see it.
We finally got to the Metro train and then to the bus stop and back to the campground about 6:30. We were exhausted! We had BBQ left over from eating out yesterday, so now we have eaten and are resting up to do some of it all over again tomorrow.
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