Washington DC-- Day 2

The first stop of the day was to go up into the Washington Monument.  It was surprising to learn that the Washington Monument is actually shorter than the Space Needle, it is however the largest stone monument ever made.  The color change in the monument about 1/3 of the way up is because construction halted on the monument during the civil war and when they resumed building it the marble was a different color.  It was very cool to see DC from a bird's eye view.  We also saw the Washington DC temple from up there!

American History Museum

While in the American History Museum we saw some iconic artifacts!  One of the very first things we saw was a huge Sun-stone from the Nauvoo Temple.

Carl Lewis's speed suit from the Olympics

This strange twisted piece of metal is from the Twin Towers

Supreme Court

We originally had a tour scheduled for the Supreme Court building but because of our good friend the Pope, it was cancelled. We were able to walk around in part of the building and see the Supreme Court Justice Courtroom.  It is surprisingly small!

A really cool staircase in the building!

Arlington Cemetery

We spent the evening at Arlington Cemetery.  We saw the Eternal flame of JFK, the Tomb of the Unknown Solider, the changing of the guard, Robert E Lee's mansion, President Taft's grave, and in the process got eaten alive by mosquitoes.   I literally had 18 bites on one leg and 20 on the other.  Besides the insane amount of bugs the cemetery is beautiful!

Pentagon~ 9-11 Memorial

Visiting the Pentagon was an interesting experience.  All around the building are signs not to take pictures of the building or you will be arrested.  So taking their advice I decided NOT take any pictures of it. On our return trip home we flew over the Pentagon.  It was awesome to see it all lit up.

The memorial from September 11th is right next to the Pentagon.  We listened to a recorded tour on our phones about the memorial.  We saw the exact location of impact from the plane and learned different facts about that day and why the memorial was built like it was.

The monument is made up of 184 benches to represent each life that was lost at the Pentagon that day.  If the bench is pointing toward the Pentagon the individual was on the plane that crashed.  If it is pointing away from the building it means that the person was in the building.  

 We also spent time at the White House Visitor Center and the Holocaust Museum.  You could spend probably 3 days straight in the Holocaust Museum and still not read all the information that is in there.  It is intense!  We also saw some security guards secure the area when a unidentified package was left in front of the Holocaust building.  They don't joke around about things like that!