Hmm, spending a weekend in Washington DC with nothing planned, what to do...
Yep, you guessed it! How about visiting a few states that I haven't been to yet. (5 to be exact)
After leaving DC the first state I came to was Maryland...
After Maryland I came up on our nation's first state, Delaware.
From Delaware I continued on to New Jersey.
And from New Jersey I went on to Pennsylvania.
And last, but not least, the state of West Virginia.
So what does that raise the total to? A total of 31 visited states! And of course I had to add an updated map to show the 5 new visited states! :)
Now that was Saturday, today on Sunday I took a tour of DC!
The tour started out by visiting the White House.
And here's a picture of me with the White House in the background.
Just up the street is the guest house for foreign dignitaries. You can see it here with an American flag hanging from it. (It's the white one in the middle) When someone is visiting from overseas they hang the flag of where the dignitary is from instead of the American flag. The tour guide told us that until World War II they would actually stay at the White House. But apparently Winston Churchill wore out his welcome when he would walk up the hall and wake up FDR at 2 am to discuss different matters concerning the war. Mrs. Roosevelt apparently didn't appreciate that and so ever since the guest house has been where visitors stay.
We then drove by the Washington National Cathedral which sits at the highest point in Washington DC. President Woodrow Wilson is the only US president buried here, but other famous people like Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan are also buried here.
The next stop was the US Marines Memorial. The depiction of the raising of the American flag at Iwo Jima is the main part of the memorial but if you look closely, around the base of the memorial it lists all of the wars that the US Marine Corps has been a part of.
We then stopped by the US Air Force Memorial. The memorial pictured here with the three spires represents the Air Force's core values: Integrity first, Service before self, and Excellence in all that we do.
The sign below marks the entrance to the memorial.
After stopping for lunch we next visited what they called the big three memorials. They call them that because they are located very close together. They include the Korean War Memorial, the Vietnam War Memorial, and the Lincoln Memorial. Pictured below is a depiction of soldiers going through harsh terrain.
And we must never forget that Freedom is rather costly...
At the memorial they fly the American flag as well as the POW - MIA flag to remember those who were either prisoners of war or were missing in action.
We then moved to the Vietnam War Memorial. Depicted here are the three American races that were involved in the war: Hispanic Americans, African Americans, and Caucasian Americans.
The majority of the memorial consists of the wall pictured below with the more than 58,000 Americans who were either killed or were MIA (Missing in action).
And finally we came to one of favorite parts of the day, the Lincoln Memorial!
Inside the memorial the larger than life statue of Lincoln.
And here's another picture of me with Lincoln in the background.
From the Lincoln Memorial there is a great view of the Washington Monument. Here you can see the reflective pool with the Washington Monument.
And here by looking at an angle you can see that directly behind the Washington Monument is the Capital building.
The next memorial we visited was the Jefferson Memorial, here from the back side you can see it resembles Jefferson's home at Monticello.
Inside the memorial is the statue of Jefferson.
And here is a view from the front of the Jefferson Memorial.
Amazing how often this happens. From the Jefferson Memorial there is a split in the trees that gives you a view of the White House.
We also stopped briefly at the World War II Memorial.
The memorial had 50 pillars, one for each of the 50 States. Pictured here is the California pillar.
There are also two main entrances, on the near side is the entrance with the title "Pacific" commemorating the Pacific theater of the war. On the far side the entrance is listed as Atlantic.
And finally, our last stop of the day was at none other than the US Capital!
Here is a shot from directly in front of it.
And here is a self portrait with the Capital in the background.
And here's a view of the Washington Monument from the other side.
The Capital rotunda is quite a site to see in person. I hope to have a chance to visit here again someday.
Now I did take a whole lot more pictures than I posted here. If you would like to see more of the pictures I took you can see them at http://picasaweb.google.com/kevinhornplayer.
Thanks for stopping by!
