Wednesday, July 28 – Let the touring begin!!! Well, we took on the heat in DC and I'm not really sure we won.....LOL! It was a HOT day to say the least.
We drove into Springfield to catch the Metro to Washington, DC. We purchased “Fast Passes” which give us unlimited Metro riding for a week. We parked free at a neighboring mall and walked a couple blocks to the Metro Station.
This is one of the trains leaving. The place is so clean!
This is looking down on the roof of one train arriving and one leaving.
The ride in on the subway/train was very nice. We exited the train at Foggy Bottom/GW University station. We didn’t spend much time in Georgetown, but it looks just like what Marsha said she thought it would look like. You be the judge.
On our way to our first stop, we passed the Department of Navy. WOW…they are serious when they say NO TRASPASSING!
Our first stop was the Lincoln Memorial. The Lincoln Memorial stands at the west end of the National Mall. It is surrounded by a peristyle of 38 fluted Doric columns, one for each of the thirty six states in the Union at the time of Lincoln's death.
President Lincoln is Marsha’s favorite President. She was so excited to get her picture taken with him.
Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech to a crowd by the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 .
Paul is showing me where he stood when the speech was given. Right on the edge of the water.
This far away.
Now if you believe that….
Korean War Monument was very impressive. From 1950 to 1953, the United States joined with the United Nations forces in Korea to take a stand against what was deemed a threat to democratic nations worldwide.They had a ceremony the day before our visit, that’s the reason for all the flowers. The wall had different scenes from the war etched in the stone wall.
Vietnam War Memorial (The Wall) was bigger than we both imaged. The 58,191 names are inscribed in chronological order of the date of the casualty, showing the war as a series of individual human sacrifices and giving each name a special place in history. It is a pretty amazing Memorial.
There are several books available with all the names listed, what wall they are on and the line number.
World War II Memorial honors the 16 million who served in the armed forces of the U.S., the more than 400,000 who died, and all who supported the war effort from home.
There are scenes depicting the war surrounding the Memorial.
The Washington Monument is shaped like an Egyptian obelisk, stands 555’ 5 1/8” tall, and offers views in excess of thirty miles. The Reflecting Pool 167 feet wide, 2029 feet long, 18 inches deep on sides - 30 inches in center and has approximately 6,750,000 gallons of water.
This was taken from the WW II Memorial.
The Mall, The Ellipse, The White House, The Vistors Center, Smithsonian Castle, and finally the National Air and Space Museum. Those pictures will come in the next blog.
We caught the Metro at L'Enfant Plaza for the relaxing ride home. We were BUSHED (no pun intended using a former President’s name to describe our condition).
Paul liked the Lincoln Memorial the best, with seeing the Washington Monument a close second. Marsha rated the Lincoln Memorial number one and the Korean War Memorial number two. All the famous monuments are worth seeing......it's going to take quite a few exhausting days to see most of them.....stay tuned to see if we survive!
From the Frying Pan into the Skillet = HOT IN DC !!! Day 2 started out much like Day 1 ended.....HOT ! We awoke to 82 HUMID degrees....eeeeek!
I don't know if it's due to poor wiring in the campground or brownouts due to the heat, but we can't run our AC in the motor home without tripping our EMS (electrical management system). Actually, we can't run much of anything.....aaargh. Paul's about ready to die from the heat. He spoke with the campground management, but it appears there is little they can do about the problem????
We have our White House tour this morning. We headed out for the subway/train at 7:30 a.m. At least the subway has AC. You are not permitted to take ANYTHING other than you money (LOL) and ID on the tour. No storage lockers are available in downtown DC either. Must be a post 911 precaution – which there are numerous. So, we had to leave camera, etc... in the car and will need to return there after the tour.
Well, so much for our White House tour......Cancelled....no explanation given. Sounded a little weird. They actually called us on the cell at about 9:30 to tell us it was canceled. They will try to reschedule if possible.
The good news is we moved to another camp site. After failing to get power in site 99 they moved us to site 73, a full hook-up site (no additional charge). Now we have 50 amps, water, and sewer. We also decided to extend our stay here an additional four days. That way we can slow our sightseeing pace down and get some relief from the heat. We decided to just relax at camp for the rest of the day!!!
New site…so much room!
Down the road.
Just as Marsha was getting the pictures ready for the blog, she received an email telling us we are rescheduled for the White House Tour for Saturday morning at 9:00 a.m…..YIPEE!
Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all real soon.
