May 22-June 3, 2017

 Travel day to Cosca Regional Park, Clinton, MD

I had set the alarm for 6:30AM because I wanted to get an early start.  The forecast called for rain.  I was already nervous about the trip down the mountain and didn’t want to add wet roads to the mix.

There was only one person ahead of us at the dump station.  We pulled out of the campground by 8AM.

The sun came out as we descended the mountain and I was relieved that the trip down wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be.

We planned on spending a week in one of my favorite places, Washington DC.  I had requested tickets for three places we had not toured on our last visit to the Capitol in 2014- The White House, The Capitol Building and The Pentagon.  Admission to almost every museum and monument in Washington DC is free but does require a ticket during certain times of the year (March through August) due to a large volume of visitors.

We already had confirmation for our visit to the Capitol and the Pentagon but hadn’t heard yet from Senator Rubio’s office about our White House tour.  Public tour requests must be submitted through one’s Member of Congress up to three months in advance and no less than 21 days in advance.

Our destination was Cosca Regional Park in Clinton, Maryland.  Cosca is a lovely small county park that we had camped at for 17 days back in September 2014.   The stay limit is normally 14 days but we were allowed to stay longer because there were only two other people in the campground.

The only negative thing about the park is that all sites are first come first served.  With Memorial Day coming up I was concerned we wouldn’t get a site.  (AND I didn’t have a back-up plan).

I was so relieved when we pulled into the campground to see that the site we had in 2014 was empty. 

After setting up we went across the road to the park office and paid up until next Tuesday, the day after Memorial Day.

I enjoyed a glass of wine while Monte set up our satellite dish. 

 When I looked at the picture I realized I had taken a very similar picture 3 years ago. 

We were to discover during the course of our two week stay in the Washington DC area that May is one of the worst times to visit.  The last time we visited was during the month of September when school sessions had just begun so there were no crowds and no tour tickets were required.

This time around it appeared that every school decided to take a trip to the capitol.  Tour tickets, although free, are required for almost every place we wanted to visit.  Some attractions have some tickets set aside for first come first served and each place has its own security policy listing restrictions.

On our first day into the city we were lucky enough to find a metered parking spot right in front of the Bureau of Printing and Engraving where we were able to secure first come first served tickets for a tour.

We had an hour wait for our tour so we walked next door to the Holocaust Museum and toured Daniel’s story.  The exhibition tells the story of one family’s experiences during the Holocaust from the perspective of a boy growing up in Nazi Germany.

After going through security, back at the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, we watched an introductory film and then our tour guide took us along the gallery overlooking the production floor. 

 

 The tour ends up in the Visitor Center.

We made it back to our truck just as the meter expired.  Before we left Monte noticed this ice cream truck across the street and couldn’t resist getting a cup of frozen custard.

On the day of our planned Capitol Building tour we parked at the Jefferson Memorial parking lot along the Basin and called a cab to take us to the Capitol. 

  Our scheduled tour time was 12:00PM but we didn’t get into the building until almost 1PM because security blocked off the entrance.

  We never did find out why.

The tour began with a 13-minute film entitled, “Out of Many, One” illustrating how the country established a new form of government and highlights the vital role the Congress plays in the daily lives of Americans.

Our tour guide was funny and entertaining.  My only complaint is the fast pace of the tour and the size of the crowd. 

President George Washington wanted the new nation’s capitol city to express aspiration, grandeur and permanence.   He knew that domed buildings would convey these values. 

Today, the Capitol Dome is known around the world.

The tour route took us past the office of Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House.

Prohibited Items into the Capitol Building includes liquids, including water, and food of any kind so we ended up eating at the Capitol Building restaurant. 

After lunch we took the tunnel connecting the Capitol Building to the Thomas Jefferson Building that houses the Library of Congress. 

By doing so we avoided having to go through security again. 

The Library of Congress is the world’s largest repository of knowledge and creativity with a growing collection of more than 162 million items, including books, print materials, sound recordings, photographs, maps, sheet music, motion pictures and manuscripts in more than 470 languages.

The library is the home of the U.S. Copyright Office whose mission is to promote creativity by administering and sustaining an effective national copyright system.

One of the exhibits we really enjoyed was Hope for America that explores the time-honored tradition of American comedians.  Bob Hope took the lead in raising money to support the war effort, risked his life to entertain the troops at the front lines and represented the U.S. abroad in cultural diplomacy initiatives. 

Moving on to the Supreme Court of the United States, we once again went through security.

 

 

The Supreme Court is the highest tribunal in the Nation for all cases and controversies arising under the Constitution or the laws of the United States. 

We attended a Courtroom lecture where a docent explained the courtroom procedures.   Photography is prohibited.  This is a replica of the courtroom. 

 

Our next attraction to tour was the United States Botanic Garden. 

 The Garden is one of the oldest botanic gardens in North America and informs visitors about the importance, value and diversity of plants, as well as their aesthetic, cultural, economic, therapeutic and ecological significance.

 

The Garden, established by Congress in 1820, maintains approximately 65,000 plants for exhibition study, conservation and exchange with other institutions. 

 

Our walk back to where we had parked took us along the mall and the Jefferson Memorial.

The memorial was dedicated by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1943. 

 

 It stands in a straight line with the White House.

 

To avoid rush hour traffic we decided to drive over to the Lincoln Memorial. 

 It was such a beautiful evening we ended up staying until 10PM.

“In this temple, as in the hearts of the people for whom he saved the Union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever.”  Beneath these words sits the 16^th President of the United States immortalized in marble. 

The Korean War Memorial is a short walk just south of the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall. 

 The memorial commemorates the sacrifices of the 5.8 million Americans who served in the armed services during the three-year period of the Korean War (June 1950-July 1953).  Over 36,000 Americans died during the war. 

We walked along the Vietnam Veterans Memorial at twilight where I observed a park ranger gathering up flowers and other mementos that had been placed at the base of the wall. 

I discovered that the non-perishable items are cataloged and stored at the National Park Service Museum Resource Center.

The memorial also includes The Three Soldiers (no photo) sculpture by Frederick Hart that portrays three young uniformed American soldiers and the Vietnam Women’s Memorial dedicated to the women who served mostly as nurses.  It depicts three uniformed women with a wounded soldier.

 

Before departing the area we spent a few more minutes back at the Lincoln Memorial.

 

 

There is no public parking at the Pentagon.  We found a public parking garage that accommodated our size truck across the street from the Pentagon at the Harris Teeter that only cost $5.00 for the entire day.   (FYI-most of the parking garages around the DC area have a height restriction of 6’6”.  With the air horns on our truck we measure 6’8”).  The Harris Teeter garage is a short walk through a street tunnel to the Pentagon. 

There is a long list of prohibited items allowed into the Pentagon. 

 

 Cameras are allowed but photography is limited to the tour waiting area.

All Pentagon tours must be requested in advance to allow for background checks. 

The tour itself is 60 minutes long.  Visitors must stay with the guide the entire time.  The tour guide walks backwards almost the entire time so he or she can keep eyes on the group to make sure no one strays.

Ground was broken for the Pentagon on September 11, 1941.  It is one of the world’s largest office buildings housing 23,000 military and civilian employees.  It has five sides, five floors above ground, two basement levels, and five ring corridors per floor.  The Pentagon is like a small city with shops and restaurants.

We really enjoyed the tour but it was just too speedy.  There was no time to read any of the exhibits we passed.  

The most emotional part of the tour was when we walked down the hall housing the quilts donated by Americans who wanted to express their feelings after the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

 

At the conclusion of the tour we walked the short distance to the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial honoring the 184 people whose lives were lost at the Pentagon and on American Flight 77.

Each victim’s age and location at the time of the attack have been permanently inscribed into the Memorial by the unique placement and direction of each unit.  The youngest victim was three-year old Dana Falkenberg, and the oldest was John Yamnicky at 71 who was a Navy veteran, both on board Flight 77.

Each unit has a cantilevered bench, a lighted pool of flowing water and a permanent tribute.  The units are specifically positioned to distinguish victims who were in the Pentagon from those who were on board Flight 77. 

The memorials facing the Pentagon were on board Flight 77 while the units facing away represent the victims who were inside the Pentagon during the attack.

Before heading back to the campground we stopped off at the United State Air Force Memorial adjacent to Arlington National Cemetery.

George W. Bush at the memorial dedication in October 2006 said, “To all who have climbed sunward and chased the shouting wind, America stops to say: your service and your sacrifice will be remembered forever, and honored in this place by the citizens of a free and grateful nation.”

 

The three memorial spires range from 201 feet to 270 feet high and appear to be soaring. 

The stainless steel arcs against the sky evoke the image of contrails of the Air Force Thunderbirds as they peel back in a precision bomb burst maneuver.  A missing fourth contrail suggests the missing man formation.

The bronze sculpture represents the United States Air Force Honor Guard. 

Our next trip into the city was back to the Holocaust Museum.  Tickets are required to tour the Permanent Exhibition that can only be accessed via the elevators near the Information Desk.  We didn’t have tickets so our visit would be limited to the lower level where we watched a couple of films: Deadly Medicine-22 minute film examines how Nazi leadership used science to help legitimize persecution, murder, and, ultimately genocide and Liberation, a 15 minute film that includes personal testimony about the moment of liberation from Holocaust survivors and American soldiers who liberated the concentration camps.

After watching the films we went into the elevator located near the theatre.  Monte pushed the button for the fourth floor.  A gentleman that was in the elevator with us informed us that we did not have access to that floor from this elevator.  He asked us if we had tickets.  When we said sadly we did not, he peeled two tickets from a large pad and presented them to us.  We were so startled that we didn’t ask him his name. 

We spent the next six hours touring the Permanent Exhibition. 

The fourth floor chronicles events in Germany from Adolf Hitler’s rise to power from 1933 to the outbreak of World War II in 1939.

The Middle floor examines the wartime evolution of Nazi policy toward the Jews from the persecution to separation in ghettos to annihilation. 

 

 

 

 

The Second floor address the possibilities for responding to the Holocaust in the face of mass indifference and the postwar quest to render justice, as well as the efforts of survivors to build new lives.

When I was finally able to reach someone in Senator Rubio’s office to inquire about the White House tour tickets I had requested, I was informed that there were no tickets available.  However, his office was able to acquire two congressional tickets for Memorial Day to the National Museum of African American History and Culture. 

The museum has welcomed more than one million visitors since opening in September 2016.  Timed entry tickets are required so I was thrilled to receive the tickets from Senator Rubio’s office.  The tickets were only good for Memorial Day but had no time restrictions so we could take our time arriving.

We parked in our usual place near the Jefferson Memorial and slowly walked along the Basin

 

 

and through the FDR Memorial. 

And then the MLK Memorial.

 

 

As we were walking past the World War II Memorial we noticed there was a ceremony going on that had just begun. 

Two of the special honorees were a 101 and 105 year old WWII vets.  We listened to a very heart-stirring rendition of Danny Boy played on the harmonica by a 99 year-old WWII vet.

On the way to the National Museum of African American History and Culture we walked past the Washington Monument.  We had hoped to get tickets to ride up the elevator but unfortunately the monument is closed until 2019 in order to modernize the elevator.

 

We arrived shortly after the museum opened at 10AM.  There were large crowds of people going through security and waiting to take the elevator down to the history galleries.  

We didn’t take a lot of pictures because we just wanted to enjoy the exhibits.  The layout at the very bottom of the museum begins with Slavery and Freedom 1400-1877.  This exhibition explores the complex story of slavery beginning in the 15^th century and extends up through the founding of the US and concludes with the nation’s transformation during the Civil War and Reconstruction.

The next floor explores the years following the end of Reconstruction to show how the nation struggled to define the status of African Americans. 

Airplane flown by the famous Tuskegee Airmen

The next level up explores a changing America:1968 and beyond.  Exhibits include contemporary black life through stories and broad coverage from the death of MLK jr. to the second election of Barack Obama.

There is absolutely no food allowed in the museum so we had lunch in the café.  (We found the menu a bit pricey.  There is no re-entry into the museum and it really takes the entire day to tour the exhibits so if you want to eat the café is the only choice.)

One of the most moving exhibits in the museum is the Emmett Till Exhibit.  The exhibit tells the story of Emmett Till who was an African-American teenager who was brutally murdered in Mississippi in 1955 at the age of 14.  Till, who was raised in Chicago, was visiting relatives in Mississippi.   His “crime” was whistling at a white woman.  The woman’s husband and her brother were accused of beating Emmett, gouging out his eye and shooting him in the head and then throwing his body into the river.  The defendants went on trial where an all-white jury deliberated for less than an hour before issuing a verdict of “not guilty.”

The Emmet Till murder was an early impetus of the African American civil rights movement.

The showcase of the exhibit is the actual casket of Emmett Till.

The remainder of the afternoon we toured exhibits that showcased the African-American contributions to music, sports and entertainment.

We had originally planned on leaving on the day after Memorial Day but decided to extend our stay until Sunday.  

On the day we planned on visiting the home of George Washington at Mount Vernon we left early because we wanted to make sure we had ample time to explore the museum, house and grounds.

While Monte drove, I used my phone to purchase tickets online to save $3 each ticket.  When purchasing tickets you have to select a time to tour the house. 

George Washington took up residence in the house after the death of his older half-brother who had inherited the house from their father, Augustine.  Over the course of five decades, George Washington expanded the house to create the 21-room mansion.  The interiors have been restored to their appearance in 1799. 

Back outside we visited the slave quarters,

 

watched a demonstration at the blacksmith shop,

 

paid our respects at the tomb of both George and Martha

and walked down to the wharf on the Potomac. 

 

 We toured the Pioneer Farm whose highlights included a replica of Washington’s 16-sided treading barn and a reconstructed slave-cabin.

We had a delicious lunch in the food court.  I had a Panini and Monte went with a bacon cheeseburger.  The prices were reasonable. 

In the Donald W. Reynolds Museum and Education Center we toured exhibits and watched several films where we learned about Washington’s hardships, his heroic leadership of the Continental Army and his role as the nation’s first president. 

 

Included in the admission price is a tour of the distillery and gristmill located a couple of miles away from the estate.  We arrived just in time for the final tour of the day.  The gristmill was built in 1770 to increase Washington’s production of flour and cornmeal to increase his export business. 

In 1797 Washington built a distillery next to the gristmill.  It produced nearly 11,000 gallons of rye whiskey making it one of the most successful operations of its kind in America.

Our final trip into Washington DC was to two of my favorite museums-the National Museum of Natural History and the National Museum of American History.

Both museums are part of the Smithsonian Institution, the world’s preeminent museum and research complex. 

The Natural History Museum’s collection contain over 126 million specimens of plants, animals, fossils, minerals, rocks, human remains and human cultural artifacts.

 

 

 

 

The National Museum of American History is devoted to the scientific, cultural, social, technological, and political development of the United States from colonial times to the present.  It contains more than three million historical objects including the famed Star-Spangled Banner.

 

 

What a whirlwind two weeks we had in the Washington DC area.  It was exhausting, exciting, educational and just plain fun.  I have always been a history buff -so much so that I majored in history in college.  BUT, as much as I enjoyed our time here, I am so looking forward to the next adventure.