Today's agenda is to stroll down the National Mall and visit the memorials. We took the Metro to L'Enfant Plaza station and headed down the field toward the Washington
Monument. The field had recently been re-sodded so we needed to keep to the pebble path. On the way to the Washington Monument, we had a view of the Capitol Building.
At the Washington Monument Debby found a National Parks Ranger who showed her the place where there is a replica of the monument underground in a manhole that contains
an elevation marker that is used to monitor the sinking of buildings in the area. The Ranger said he didn't have a salary grade high enough to lift the lid, but did allow her
to stand on the cover.
From there we headed to the World War II Memorial. Granite columns representing each US State and territory at the time of World War II ring a pool of water with
two fountains shooting water into the air. I found Texas, Illinois and the Philipines. There is a wall of 4048 gold stars to remind everyone of the 400,000 Americans that
made a sacrifice to make that victory possible.
We then continued along the mall to the Korean War Veterans Memorial (With a view of the Lincoln Memorial on the way). As we entered, the statues of the soldiers
marching toward the remembrance wall seemed very sober. There were some images of soldiers etched into the wall that were hard to see because of the way the sun was
shining on it. Apparently one of the images is from an uncle of Jefferie.
I understood the plan was to by-pass the Lincoln Memorial and do the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial first. Jimmy and I both followed that plan.
While doing that wegot some more distant photos of the Lincoln and the Washington Memorials as we passed in front of them. I was able to find "Punky" Kuner's name on
the memorial board because I researched it ahead of time and knew it was on Panel 9W. The labelling of the panels wasn't that evident as it is located at the very
bottom right. I think Punky graduated a couple years ahead of me at Riverside High. I would see him jumping up and scaling a high sign (it may have been a back stop for
tennis balls) as I was heading to the ball field on my way home. He would proudly announce he was practicing to be a marine.
After visiting the Vietnam Memorial we found out that Pat, Sue and Debby were already part way up the steps to Lincoln's Memorial. Jimmy looked at the steps/height
change that is required to go up there and decided to skip it and started back toward the return trip. The elevator was out of service due to some work going on.
I headed up to view the Memorial.
From there Pat and Debby headed to the Viet Nam Memorial. They planned to take the circular back to the Washington Monument. Jimmy was already half way to where we left
Sue at the WWII Memorial, so we continued to walk there. Pat and Debby found a rickshaw and driver and hired him to take them to the Agriculture building where they planned to have
lunch. Talked Kevin into coming back for Jim and Sue.
May21st
Debby had me move the International Spy Museum tour to 9:30 in the morning because she thought we wouldn't be able to get from the Pentagon Tour to the museum in time for the 3:30
reservation. There was a little confusion amongst the airbnb group on the leaving time to get there. Debby had a bit of trouble with her wheel chair getting into the
Metro. We made it just in time.
The displays on how spies worked were quite interesting. They showed various items used by the spies in the past and present. I spent a lot of time viewing the
items spies used, so that I didn't have much time left and rushed through the can you be a spy area.
I didn't participate in their can you be a spy game. I watched one event where a bunch of kids listened
to scenarios that were pitched to President Obama about the likelihood of the presence of Osama Bin Laden being in a compound and what the chances of successfully
raiding the compound. They were then asked to choose whether or not they raided it. I'd say over half of them chose the wrong answer based on their groans when the
answer was revealed.
We got back together at 11:30 and headed to the Pentagon Tour. We had a 1:00 pm reservation, but they wanted us to check in an hour early for security clearance.
We got there a little after 12:00. Once cleared, we waited for our tour guide and were able to take some photos in the waiting room. No photos were allowed on the tour.
| Pentagon Waiting Room |
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When our tour guide started the tour, we had some issues with wheel chair persons not being planned for and the numerous ramps we had to pass through.
Our guide was a young (22 year old) man who was tasked with completing the tour in 45 minutes. His pace didn't allow much time for viewing the items that were available
there to view. Jefferey kept throwing out obscure questions that he seemed to handle fairly well. The electric wheelchair ran out of juice near the end of the tour.
We then headed to the Memorial Gardens. The walk was a lot further than he indicated. Jim stopped about half way to it. Jefferey disappeared shortly after the start.
The cantilever seats were arranged so that if you viewed the name from the seat and it pointed away from the Pentagon that meant that person was on the plane.
If you were facing the Pentagon that person was in it at the time of the attack. The wall marks the year of birth for each row and the height of the wall indicates
the age of the victims.
Later we ate at Rockland's Barb-B-Q, I had the grilled lamb which was pretty good.
Wednesday, May22nd
I think we took the Metro to the Smithsonian exit. It turned out to be a longer walk to the Botanical Gardens than we expected. Debby went to the capital while John, Pat and
I made our way to the gardens.
The gardens weren't in their prime blooming state. Still there were many interesting blooms and displays to be seen. When we rested on a bench and watched the birds
moving in and out Patrick showed me some apps he has for identifying bird songs and plants. I noted the names of the apps and will see if they are available for
Samsung phones.
We then passed by the Capitol to the other side of the National Mall to meet Debby on Constitution Street. Debby wanted to pass through the National Gallery of Art to take
advantage of their air conditioning. I took some photos of some of the brass sculptures there. I wasn't that interested in the old furniture.
Between the two wings we found the "Sculpture Garden Pavilion Cafe" where we ate lunch. I had the Roasted Mushroom, Spinach, Goat
Cheese Quiche. It was very good. I also had a good BlackBerry Danish for dessert.
From there I went to the National Museum of Natural History. John may have entered there too, but I'm pretty sure Debby went somewhere else and likely took Pat with her.
I think we just agreed to meet at the elephant at a certain time.
I wanted to see the Hope Diamond so I made my way there. Changing floors was trickier than you might think, but I managed to find the diamond. Everyone was crowding
around it which made getting a photo a bit difficult. From there I checked out the other precious gems on display there. They have everything brightly illuminated
to show off the sparkling, but that made photographing difficult. I tried my best.
I think I doubled back on the gem and minerals hall to get more pictures as the crowd dispersed and next entered the Night Sky hall because I was seeing displays
of various meteorites that impacted the earth.
Next I viewed some displays of volcanic eruption deposits.
I went back down stairs and entered the Hall of Fossils.
From there I entered the Hall of Mammals. I quickly looked at the displays, but to hurry to get to our 2:00 o'clock meet at the elephant.
I think this is the day that Dom grilled for our dinner. John found a cheaper night time tour of the monuments than I was able to find so we headed back to Union
Station on the Metro for a 7:00 pm tour start. We were required to check in an hour early and wait around the station before they loaded the trolley.
It wasn't dark yet as the trolley left the station. We were given a tour of the capitol area with slowdowns, stops for pictures from the bus until the first of three
actual stops. The driver tried to make comical comments along the way. At the Supreme Court building he observed that the buildings normally feature a male and
a female statue at the entrance. The man is always on the left because side of the entrance. Why, because a woman is always right.
When it got dark, we had three stops on the tour. The first stop was half way between the Martin Luther King Memorial and the FDR Memorial. We were given 20 minutes to
visit the two sites and solve a couple of questions he posed. We were asked to photo Martin Luther quotes and the bottom of the statue to solve his quiz.
His answer to what did we notice about the statue was that it was unfinished just like MLK's dream.
The next stop was at the Arlington Cemetery where we dropped off on one side of the US Marine Corp Memorial and picked up on the other side so I got pictures from
several views.
The final stop was at the Lincoln Memorial where we were assigned to find the misspelled word in the middle panel of the speech and to interpret the sign language
of Lincoln's fingers. I wasn't going to climb all those steps again, but did take pictures from below.
Our driver put fear in several of the tourist when he decided to move the bus a few minutes before our return deadline. In addition, on the way back to the finish line
he chose to promote his performance with a slide show of famous people he rubbed shoulders with. He was pushing for a good performance review, but we were
worried about getting to the Metro before they shut down.
Thursday, May23rd
Today we took the Metro to L'Efant Plaza and found our way to the Smithsonian Air and Science Museum where I spent over an hour in the Wright Brothers Display.
Their life story and their means of inventing the airplane were very interesting. I never knew such details before.
I saw some interesting aerial drone displays on my way to the Space Program display. There was an extensive history of the Space Program race to the moon.
Leaving there we met Debby and headed past the American Indian Museum on our way to Lunch at the USDA International food court. We had to clear security, who directed
us to the cafeteria. It has a huge selection of various types of items. I picked several items from the luncheon buffet section. They weigh your platter
and charged 75 cents per oz ($12/lb) on the receipt.
That evening we had dinner at the Quarterdeck in Arlington. Debby wasn't able to reserve a table for 8, but she did a 5-person reservation on the porch and a three
person reservation inside. When we got there, she talked them into crowding in another table to get all 8 of us together. I had planned to order scallops, but they had a
Pasta Garlic Seafood Fettuccini that had scallops, shrimp and mussels and it was cheaper so I ordered that, so did Pat. It was super. Debby ordered a dozen blue crabs and
ate half of them and saved the rest for later. Best thing of all: Pat treated us.
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Friday, May24th
I was originally scheduled to accompany Jim and Sue to the Basilica of The Immaculate Conception, but I was afraid they were going to rest another day so
I took the fourth entry Debby had for the Library of Congress and the Capital. We had a 10:15 ticket to the Library of Congress so we took the Metro to the
Capital area and walked in view of the capital to the Library of Congress.
Once inside we wandered around looking at the statues and art. The Jefferson Wing has lots of his personal books on display. There is mold of the Statue on top of the
capital building. From the upstairs, there is a view of the Main Reading Room, where research is done. Later Debby texted that we could line up for an actual entrance into
the reading room for a limited time.
When I found the entrance to the main reading room, people were lining up with entry tickets. I saw Jeffery in line and he pointed me where to get the tickets.
They were issuing tickets of different colors. I think each group was about 20 people. I got my ticket and got in line. The wait wasn't very long because once we
entered the reading room we were kept moving along to limit our time to around 5 minutes.
We got together at the entrance and walked along the "secret" hallway to the Capitol Building. We entered the Capitol Visitor's Center where Debby showed our ticket/reservations
and then wandered through the Rotunda. After some wandering around, I tagged along with a tour group. The leader pointed out the statues and that each state got to
contribute two statues that they occasionally replace.
We then used our House of Representative ticket to enter their Chamber. We got to see where they sit to make laws. There wasn't anything happening there. Out from
there Debby decided to try to get tickets to the Senate Chamber. At first, she was told we had to go to our Senator's office to get tickets because they were in
"session". I think she saw Pat hobbling along so relented and gave us entry tickets. When we entered the visitor viewing area, we were given a
