Monday, October 3, 2011

Washington DC Trip Day 6

Wow, so as usual I'm a day late..I'm lots of dollars short, but oh well.

Yesterday we had our final day in Washington DC. We got back to Kansas City last night, picked up Oliver from my mom's and picked up Jon's truck from Blue Springs..needless to say, by the time we actually got home we were exhausted. So I have a post today.

After much deliberation we decided to go to Arlington Cemetery yesterday.
It was overcast all day, and pretty chilly. We opted to ride the tour bus around the cemetery. It stopped at 3 places, the Kennedy grave site, the Tomb of the Unknowns, and Arlington House.

I could not believe how many headstones there were.

250lbs of marble.

John F. Kennedy, his wife, and 2 of his children are buried here, under the eternal flame.

This is the marble amphitheater where they hold important ceremonies.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers. There are 3 buried here currently. The 4th from Vietnam was identified using DNA testing, so he was removed, as per the family's request.

There is a group of soldiers that guard the tomb every day. During the summer they change the guard every 30 minutes, and in the winter they change every hour. During non-public times they change every 2 hours.

We got to see them change the guard.


They walk back and forth, and everything is based off 21 (like the 21 gun salute) 21 steps across, 21 seconds facing each way, etc.

This is the old amphitheater. It was in use until 1920. It was just outside Arlington House..which we have no pictures of...can you guess who had the camera?

It was a pretty good way to spend half a day...even though it was freezing.

Well now that our trip has been documented we'll return to our regularly scheduled programming, hopefully some time this week.

Jessica

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