Washington DC, Day 1 & 2, Oct 20-21, 2011

Our first day in DC was basically to figure out their bus and metro subway system works. Right from the RV park Bus # 83 takes you to the College Park Metro station, get on the green line towards Branch Ave, then get off at the Archives/Navy Memorial/Penn Quarter station, this puts you out right near the National Archives.

So we visited the National Archives, all backpacks were x-rayed and we walked though a scanner similar to what airports have. After all that we found the Rotunda Room which houses the original Declaration of Independence, Bill Of Rights and our Nation’s Constitution. Since no photos were allowed, check out the link above for the Rotunda Room Wikipedia article to see a photo of the Room.

Our next stop was a brief visit to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum to see the Hope Diamond again. It is huge and beautiful!

Our second day in DC started just yesterday, well almost. Today I had to add money to my Metro fare ticket. These dispensing machines are intimidating, but with the help of an employee, we now know how to use them, well at least to add money to an existing ticket. Insert the ticket where it says to insert ticket, add cash in the proper slot, within seconds you have a new ticket using the value on the old card plus the inserted cash. Way too simple, now!

With it being a beautiful day in DC it was going to be a monument and memorial day. Here we are approaching the Lincoln Memorial.

Here I am with Mr. Lincoln.

From the steps of the Lincoln Memorial Martin Luther King Jr made his “I Have A Dream” speech on August 28, 1963 to over 200,000 civil rights supporters.

Next, the Korean War Veterans Memorial. Awesome!!

This was an awesome wall, the visitors were with images from the war. Both Bob and I are also in this photo.

Then to actually see the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in person. We had seen the travelling wall several times, actually once in Quartzsite where we helped folks find their loved ones names.

This time we checked the index book and found where Bob’s brother’s name was engraved, then found the correct panel and his name. We both reached up and touched it.

A couple of fellows in yellow caps had paper and pencils for making rubbings, we did that. The fellows in the yellow caps also asked if you could reach the name you wanted to do a rubbing of, if you could not, they had a step ladder available.

The forever sadness of war.

This National World War II Memorial was completed in 2004.

Currently the Washington Monument is closed, due to a 5.8 earthquake on August 23rd. Still an awesome site.

The Martin Luther King Jr Memorial, it just opened last week.

On both flanks of the statue/sculptor are several excerpts from his speeches and sermons. This is from the speech which he gave that would be the beginning of the civil rights movement in Montgomery Alabama know as the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

With all the concrete we saw today and walked over, we also found a nice little garden walk on our way back to the Metro.