After a pancake breakfast, we left for DC via bus.  The same exact bus that Nole left his phone on yesterday.  He asked the driver about it, and he said he turned in a phone to lost and found yesterday!  Nole called lost and found and they didn’t have any updates on it and said they would mail the phone if they found it.  We are kind of in limbo because he has a phone replacement plan so we’re not sure whether to replace it or keep waiting. 

On the plan today was morning visits to Arlington, Lincoln Memorial, maybe hit the WWII Memorial, Vietnam Wall, MLK Memorial, Korean War Memorial then go to the Smithsonian Air and Space Musuem. 

Spoiler: we didn’t make to all of those places.

First up, Arlington Cemetery.  The subway took us right there.  It was painfully hot already.  Our energy is just zapped by this heat so it wasn’t a hard sell for the agents there to get us to buy a trolley tour pass.  At least we got a good military discount thanks to Ray! 

JFKs tomb:

After JFK, the girls and I split off from the rest of the group to try and get a Junior Ranger badge at Arlington House.  We had to climb a hill, crossing the burial area much to Esme’s dismay since she hates cemeteries.  She apologized to the corpses as we zig-zagged through and told them it wasn’t her idea and they shouldn’t haunt her. 

Unfortunately, after our arduous walk, we found out their AC unit failed and they were closed and no rangers were around at the other open buildings in the area to give out badges.  We hung out in the air conditioned bathroom for a while until our red faces were pink again.  We rode the trolley directly back to the visitor center, rather than go see the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier but did snap this picture as we passed. 

We had a nice narrator for our tour who asked to borrow the spray bottle I brought to spray his face.  Those drivers and narrators and other Arlington staff were doing their best in this heat! 

This is a statue of a nurse overlooking the area where WWII nurses are buried. 

Asa took this picture of the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  The other group went there while the girls and I did our side-quest.

It was 12:30pm by the time we left Arlington and the idea of hoofing 38 minutes to the National Mall did not interest us.  Plus we had timed tickets to Air and Space for a 1-2pm entry.  We went straight there via subway and decided to get food in their food court.  The cost for a hot sandwich or small pizza plus a drink was $20.  Yikes!  At least the museum was free, I guess?

It was a really cool museum.  There were a lot of college students working different interpretive booths like this one where you could try on a space suit glove. 

The real Wright brothers’ plane was here but looks like I didn’t get a picture of that.  Here is Nova with the Wright Brothers.  We read about their sister, Katherine.  She spent a lot of time with the brothers and none of them married…until Katherine married at age 50.  Her only living brother, Orville, did not approve and stopped speaking to her until her deathbed at age 54. 

I thought this part was interesting.  They would fly their planes like kites before putting a human up. 

The plane above the girls here is an ultralight.  Planes like these were used to show whooping cranes how to migrate from Wisconsin to Florida.

Another interpretive area where they had several manipulatives kids could play with having to do with colored, light, and shadow.  The girls liked these gem blocks and played here until I dragged them away.

At this point, most people were ready to leave but Nole and I wanted to see a few more exhibits so we made the girls come with us to see the moon exhibit and the speed exhibit. 

This is Neil Armstrong’s spacesuit. 

We were actually getting cold inside the museum.  When we got outside, a storm seemed to be brewing and the sky was overcast.  All week, we have been chasing the shade.  When we walked down the street, when we waited for a bus or a light to change so we could cross, we would always look for a patch of shade.  Asa said, “We can stand wherever we want, now that everywhere is shade”.  In fact, without the sun beating on us it was tolerable outside!  We headed back to the campground anyway because we were tired. 

We had frozen pizzas for dinner and packed up the cabin.  We moved all of our food there on the first day so everything was centrally located for cooking and we had to take it all back to our camper’s fridge.  We watched some more Harry Potter and my mom took Nova to the pool.  My mom and Ray leave on an early flight tomorrow morning so we said goodbye before going to bed.