Thursday, July 1

Can you believe it? July already. It was a beautiful, low-humidity, clear blue sky kind of day today. Perfect for walking around a normally humid, hot DC. 

We met the ladies at the station and got them one day passes for $9 each. You can ride the Metro as many times as you want for the same price. We did. Our first stop was Arlington National Cemetery. In all the years I lived in DC, this was the first time for actually going inside. In the main reception area there are some binders set up by some children to remember the fallen soldiers if Iraq and Afghanistan. I looked up and found James Finley, the son of one of my roommates many years ago, who died in 2008 via a road-side bomb. Made me cry to see it. 

Arlington is really a beautiful place for our soldiers to be laid to rest. We saw the Kennedy graves and the Tomb of the Unknown and were just in time to see the changing of the guard. I think that is done every hour. Ron Shuffield (from Texas early on this blog), was one of the guards at one time when he was in the Air Force. I took a short video I hope will upload on Webshots. We walked around the grounds and saw all those names and dates and the tombstones laid out in a perfect grid so that at any angle you look, you are seeing a straight line. Most are white, adding to the beauty of the mature trees and meticulously-kept grounds. 

We then got on the Metro and stopped at the Pentagon City station for lunch. The three ladies got big portions they could not finish. We then got back on the train and got off near the White House and walked over. It used to be car traffic would pass in front of the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, but now that is blocked off and people walk in the street. There were a couple of groups protesting the war and government support of foreign dictators, thereby exercising their First Amendment rights. Many people took photos in front of the mansion. Many guards were around and I asked one young man if he loved his job and he smiled and said yes. This is good to know.

After this we walked around to 15^th Street near the Treasury building where Henry told the ladies where they could catch the train back to the hotel and what to see on the Mall. One can spend days and days in just this part of DC and not see all the history.

I love DC.  
More photos are posted at:

http://community.webshots.com/user/japanquilter