Washington D.C.

Momma and I walked the National Mall today. It's been 10 years since I was here with my 8th grade trip and Momma hasn't been here since 1972 so lots has changed around the Mall. Unfortunately, we were having some camera difficulties this morning so we were only able to get pictures of a few things. But since the monuments have been here for quite some time, we all know what they look like. But there have been a few additions, such as the WWII Memorial and the unfinished Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, we did get pictures of those.

We had such great weather all day. Warm and sunny, and not too humid. We left our hotel around 9in the morning and got back just after 7 in  the evening. We did an insane amount of walking (Momma has terribly sore feet!!) but we got to see everything that we wanted to. Plus we did have sime adventures along the way.

The White House 

 Momma in front of The Supreme Court

 The front of the Capitol Building

 The Peace Corps is celebrating its 50th anniversary and was having a sort of exhibition on the Mall that we stopped to have a look at. Thought of you, Sara. :)

 The WWII Memorial - Pacific side

It is broken up into the Pacific and the Atlantic on different sides of a fountain with each column representing a different state or US Territory.

 WWII Memorial - Atlantic side

 I tried to get a picture of Utah's column but it didn't really come out right.

Momma in front of the Atlantic side.

The Freedom Wall

The wall holds 4,048 gold stars, each representing 100 American service personal who died or remain missing from WWII. Grand total of 405,399 Americans.

  

 The Martin Luther King, Jr Memorial

It won't be dedicated till August 28th, but we were able to sneak a peak as we walked along the Tidal Basin. 

 The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial

 The Lincoln Memorial

 The Reflecting Pool is being renovated and expanded to reach from the Lincoln Memorial to the WWII Memorial. It also had some leakage of some kind which of course needs to be fixed (the drawings show the pool as being gorgeous) but it does kinda take away from the beauty of the Mall.

The Vietnam Wall

 It's very hard to get Momma to stand for a picture. So we have these kinds of pictures of her walking around D.C.

 We walked over to Arlington National Cemetery where we were able to see the Eternal Flame for President John F. Kennedy and the crosses for Bobby and Ted Kennedy just to the south of John and Caroline.

 The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

We were lucky enough to see a Changing of the Guard ceremony while at Arlington.

 The view from Arlington House

Arlington House was part of Robert E. Lee's house when the land was his, before the Civil War.

We also were able to find our way over to the Pentagon where there is a small memorial where Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. 

 184 benches with water flowing underneath represent each of the 184 victims, both from the plane and the Pentagon.