Washington, D.C. - Day 3

Today we spent our last day in Washington D.C,  We finally got getting to the New Carrollton station, riding the transfer bus, getting on the Metro, and buying tickets to ride down pat.  Too bad this is the last day.  We made it to the blue line of the Big Bus and got on the bus to the Pentagon.  Getting to the Memorial was very easy.

There is a tunnel from a parking lot going under the six lane highway above.  

These are the names and birth years of  those in the Pentagon and on the airplane.

Around two sides of the memorial is a short marble wall with the birth years of those killed.  Between those dates are benches over a small water feature of the people born in that birth year..  At the end of the bench the name of the person is engraved.  

Th

 This is the bench for the youngest victim.  He or She was only three years old.  It was so sad to see the age of this one. The older person was 71.  On this trip we visited all three of the 911 sites.  I would say that the Memorial at Shanksville impressed me the most.  Hunter says it is because the people on the plane were able to be heroes and give their lives to save the lives of possible hundreds of others.

Lunch on the bus.  This kid loves ice cream.  As we traveled the streets of Washington D.C. on the bus, we wore ear buds and a guide told interesting facts about what we were seeing.  We really enjoyed that.  Did you know that Thomas Jefferson is know as the 1-2-3 President?  He was the first Secretary of State, Second Vice-President, and third President.  He also invented ice cream and macaroni and cheese.  Hunter liked these last two facts!  That is the kind of stuff we would hear as we traveled around.  We also heard that the men who were originally identified as having lifted the American flag over Iwo Jima was for a time in dispute.  A mother filed a law suit to have her son named as one of the men because she identified his "butt."  She said that she had diapered that butt for two years and should know what it looked like.  After an official study of the "butts,"  it was decided she was right and the names were changed.  This change lasted a few years before another official study, changed the names back to the original ones.  Now that is a fun fact.

This was taken from the bus as we passed through  Arlington.  There are over 420,000 men and women buried in this cemetery.  They are making plans for another piece of land that would allow for 20,000 more.

We had planned to take the Big Bus to the Spy Museum but because of a large parade, the stops were rearranged and we ended up walking several blocks;  Along the way, I saw this building and thought it was quite pretty.

Ford Theatre was a neat place.  The park ranger was very good in retelling the story of that night and what happened to all involved in that night.  I didn't know this but Robert Lincoln was also present when Garfield and McKinley.  were assassinated.  He was the only surviving son and is buried at Arlington.  At the end of his talk, the ranger said the Lincoln Family has so much tragedy. Even his dog Fido was killed by a drunk man about a year after the assassination.

The box were Lincoln was assassinated.

Lincoln was carried across the street to the Peterson House where he died 7 hours later.  

The bed where he died.

After this tour, we went to the  International Spy Museum.  This is the place Hunter has been waiting for all week.  It was a neat museum with displays of every type of spy imaginable.  There were also several interactive things that Hunter was able to do.  I didn't get any pictures.

We then walked a final few blocks (city blocks) to a Metro Station for the ride back to the end of the line, our shuttle bus and eventually our car.  We ate at a Wendy's which was the first thing other than the ice cream we had had all day.  This is the way it has been these last few days.  We have been so busy and ice cream and drinks was mostly what was available.

We have done so much walking this week.  Every night our feet were tired.  There is so much to see and we hardly scratched the surface.  We didn't go into any of the Smithsonian's other than the new one at the Dulles Airport.  We didn't go into the capitol or see the Declaration of Independence and Constitution at the National Archive.  We didn't go to the National Zoo to see the pandas.  My list could go on and on.  Hunter says he wants to come back with his parents and we hope he gets to.  Tomorrow we hook up our toad and turn the motorhome west and Illinois.  I figure it is an 800 mile trip which we will drive in 2 days.  We have no plans to stop anywhere except where we camp.