Rain Rain Go Away

We got up to pouring rain, as we caught the Metro to Arlington National Cemetery. It was actually quite miserable. Thank goodness KR brought her umbrella. We made it okay to the Cemetery Visitor's Center and decided, because of the rain, to snag a bus tour of the high spots. We visited the Kennedy graves and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and witnessed the "changing of the guard" at the Tomb. The Cemetery itself is much larger, and much closer to the National Mall, than I had envisioned. You head directly west across a bridge over the Potomac from the Lincoln Memorial and into the front entrance of the Cemetery. Looming over the Visitor's Center is Arlington House, the home of Robert E. Lee before the Civil War. What is now the Cemetery was the surrounding Lee estate. The Union side turned it into a cemetery during the Civil War, partly to ensure that the Lee's would never return, and his family never did. Nor did they ever contest the confiscation of the property. The sun started to show as we were leaving the Cemetery (thank goodness).

Below are pictures of: 1) the Kennedy gravesites, 2) the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, 3) rows of graves at Arlington Cemetery, and 4) Robert E. Lee's Arlington House.

We heard a good joke on the bus.......Americans look at their taxes a lot like they do their flag. They see red when they think about taxes, turn white when they get the bill, and are blue when they pay them....and see a lot of stars during the whole process. We hopped off the bus at the Smithsonian stop and spent most of the rest of the afternoon taking in the National Air and Space Museum. It claims to be the most visited museum in the entire world....and based on the number of people crowding around us, I believe it!

One of the exhibits in the Museum had an infra-red camera, and this is one of the images. Now KR has some evidence to back her claims that her hands and feet get cold!

The Museum had one of the largest McDonald's in its food court that I have ever seen (it had just closed).

We spent the last hour of the day in the brand new National Museum of the American Indian. What a gorgeous building and state-of-the-art museum. We just had time to walk through part of it and will have to find some time to finish our exploring later in the week.

As we were walking to our Metro stop, we passed by the U.S. Grant Memorial. It is right in front the Capitol on the eastern end of the National Mall.