Capitol tour, Library of Congress

Monday morning we toured the capitol building. It was interesting learning about the history of the building, seeing where our forefather’s passed laws and where John Quincy Adams listened to his opponents whisper about their plans unaware the acoustics enabled him to hear their discussion.

The capitol dome

Painting shaded to look like 3D

Congress wasn’t in session til 2pm so we went off to the Library of Congress. We spent six hours there! We took a tour, viewed exhibits and even read in the library. The kids played an interactive game where they gathered information at the exhibits and the “passports” stored information which allowed them to learn more about the subjects at home on the computer.

It's very decorative inside!

More memorials

Our second day had us visiting more memorials. We started with the Iwo Jima memorial. It’s huge! It’s a wonderfully patriotic iconic display of the marines.

Just minutes away were the Pentagon 9-11 memorial and Arlington National cemetery. We watched the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier. The kids were amazed that these young men guard this 24 hours a day no matter what the weather. We saw the space shuttle Challenger and Columbia memorials as well as JFK’s eternal flame among the rows and rows and rows of white headstones.

Pentagon 9-11 memorial

Our last stop was at Thomas Jefferson’s memorial. I’ve wanted to get to his memorial on past trips, but my legs were always too tired. We took advantage of the fact that we’d driven and headed over there late on a Sunday.

The DC area

We started our tour of Washington DC at the Air and Space museum. We were able to see the Wright Brothers flyer, The Spirit of St; Louis, jumbo jets, unmanned aircraft, and space craft. We watched some videos and pieced together more of our countries history. It’s really amazing how far air travel has come in the past 100 years!

We wandered out onto the national mall to see the Washington monument, the capitol building, the WWII memorial and Lincoln memorial from a distance. Do you know the difference between a monument and a memorial? A monument is started when the person is still alive.