Dinner in our Room - Thurs. Feb. 19

Today we finally made it to Arlington Cemetery and a tour of the Capitol. Arlington is one of the few places we paid for a tour. There is a basic 40 minute bus/shuttle ride through the cemetery that stops at the most "famous" spots. You can stay and visit those spots for as long as you like, a shuttle runs by about every 20 minutes.
View of DC from the Kennedy gravesites View of Arlington House from the Kennedy gravesites - this is the eternal flame, you just can't see it The Tomb of the Unknowns Changing of the guard Museum at Tomb The Memorial Amphitheater (The museum is part of/behind the amphitheater) The mast of the USS Maine as in "Remember the Maine..." Arlington House, where Robert E. Lee lived, was being refurbished - though we did get to go through it, the furniture and such was not there. There is a musuem which tells the story of the property and its owners. Robert E. Lee is connected to the George Washington family by marriage - he married the great granddaughter of Martha Washington. During the Civil War, the home was used for military purposes and one of the Lee's faithful slaves protected the Washington family heirlooms - not necessarily all of them now at Arlington but at Mt. Vernon and other museums etc The view of the Potomac and DC from the front of Arlington House - a flag flies at half mast on this flag pole - the "table" is the grave of Pierre Charles L'Enfant whom laid the plan for Washington DC (you can kind of see The National Shrine (("spire" and blue dome thing)) to the right of the pole L'Enfant's plan for the city - no wonder it is so crazy to get around this city in a car - Greg said it was like driving in a maze See all the triangles? interesting -what is it about the number three? Looked up 21 gun salute and learned it has something to do with the mystical powers of the numbers 3 and 7 - among other things... The Pentagon is in the distance behind the trees Waiting for our shuttle to take us back down from Arlington House (it was cold - and I passed with flying colors EYT - Embarrass Your Teenager - 101 Still had some time before we needed to head to our Capitol tour so this was a must see being so close but outside the cemetery The USMC War Memorial (Marine Corps War Memorial) also known as the Iwo Jima Memorial Of course, ya gotta get the line up... Greg getting a picture - he's on the far right Time to head back to our hotel to ditch the car, get something to eat, and make it to our Capitol Tour session at 3:20. Lunch was left overs in our room. How can we have left overs? Well, stuff that we hadn't eaten yet. More raviolis, hot dogs, cereal - stuff like that. The Capitol visitor's center - Emancipation Hall - One of the few lines we waited in but we really weren't waiting in a line - we were waiting with a group for our tour session to begin. I had no idea but this visitor center is brand new! It just opened in Dec. '08. It is underground, behind the Capitol. (Claire's not really a sad girl, she's just not cooperating to smile for my camera) Original plaster model of The Statue of Freedom - the statue on top of the Capitol Sakakawea King Kamehameha The Rotunda - the center of the Capitol - it connects the House and Senate sides This is the "Frieze of American History" that goes around the base of the dome - you can see the beginning and the end with Christopher Columbus and the Wright Brothers Statuary Hall - each state gave 2 statues to stand in the Capitol - Statuary Hall holds only 50 - just not enough room for 100 and all the visitors...other statues are displayed throughout the Capitol and visitor's center Utah sent Brigham California sent Junipero Serra The Crypt - The Bust of Abraham Lincoln in the background The crypt is where Washington's remains were to be kept - right in the center of the area - but Washington wanted to be burried at Mt. Vernon, thus there are no remains in the crypt area. When we walked around the Capitol grounds on Monday night we noticed these large areas of what looked like glass but they appeared opaque - we thought maybe they were dry fountains. But no - they were windows! This is what we saw and wondered about on Monday evening (that's the Library of Congress in the background) This is a shot of the same thing from under the glass. The last shot of the Capitol The Library of Congress - it's across the street from the Capitol We didn't really get into the library - well not to the stacks. No one gets to just go in there, not even with a tour, even though they show you this fabulous video explaining about all the cool stuff that is in there and makes you feel like this library is "our library" - you have to have a special research pass to get in and we were told they are hard to come by. Instead, we roamed the halls until the building closed to the public - saw some exhibits and finished up by resting in this big room of benches - we were the only ones there and we watched the video I mentioned. Wish I knew what Evan and Greg were talking about... We headed back to our hotel - time for dinner - we weren't very inventive - we had more leftovers! And then we stayed in the room. I was getting a bit antsy - here it being our last night in DC. We finally headed out the door again - just to go anywhere we hadn't seen yet. We opted for Dupont Circle and Embassy Row. No pictures as we were just driving by and rather quickly - it is a busy part of town but it was fun to see all of the various countries' flags hanging outside their buildings - beautiful buidlings. And we wondered "Where did Lili and Jason live?" That was our last night in DC. Just some notes regarding the Capitol and the tour. We were thrilled to get the tour - you must arrange it through a senator/rep (not difficult you just need to email or call and let them know in time for them to arrange tickets for you - we were worried we weren't "in time" but we were with some extra work from Greg to get them) We however didn't realize the visitor center even existed - thus didn't allow time to look around much - it has its own exhibit hall etc. The tour of the Capitol was great but for me it would have been good to do some study on the art history before we went because the tour guides have a schedule to keep and will point out most obivous things and answer questions regarding other things but they are on the move. And, the tour does not include the working areas of our congress now - that is a separate tour, separate tickets. Again, probably not really hard to come by, you just need to let your senator/rep know you're coming and they arrange the tickets for you. We didn't know this so missed that opportunity but congress people weren't there that day so we wouldn't have seen them working... These tours are all free, the visitor center is free. I read on a site that you don't need a tour ticket/reservation to enter the visitor center but the guards at the doors do ask to see your tickets/reservations so that is something to look into.