Day Eight- Mama and Misty's Vacation

We spent this day looking at the sights around the city.

The first spot was Arlington National Cemetery. After hiking it up to the visitor's center from the Metro stop we decided that we needed to take a tour bus the rest of the way.
It was well worth it.

Our first stop was the Kennedy's grave site. It was extremely crowded there and you had to fight your way to the front to see. Since I had been there before I watched from the side. It was fun to watch mom move her way forward and take pictures.



We then headed up to the changing of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. We got there just in time to see the change, which is fortunate because they only change every 30 minutes and the thought of sitting in the hot sun for that long was unbearable.

Both of these sites were where I visited back in December. The difference in crowd size was remarkable. For anyone planning to visit I would suggest doing so in the off-season. Not only is the weather better, but the crowds are shorter.


Our last stop at the cemetery was General Lee's house on the hill. On the way to that site we learned about how the cemetery came to be. I would share it with you, but I get enough crap about my "magical history tours" as it is.

After a lousy dinner in the Metro station we hopped on another tour bus to see the monuments at night. This was one of the highlights of the trip for me. Our tour guide was witty and fun and
did a great job telling us interesting things about the city and monuments. We also had the opportunity to stop and walk around a few of the monuments. Two of my surprise favorites were the Jefferson Memorial and the Roosevelt Memorial. There was even a statue of my favorite first lady, Eleanor!





The tour ended very late and as arranged the bus driver dropped us off by what were told was the Metro station. After the drop off we walked down into this tunnel which had the initial appearance of being a station, but as we entered further we discovered something was different. This tunnel was filled with trash and appeared deserted. The ceiling had what look liked a popcorn type layer on it that used to be white. It was now a smutty grey with finger scrape marks on it. What was even worse was that it led to nowhere. About 100 feet after it started, it ended with a stairway going up.

By this point I was done and wanted to go home! I ran up the stairs, saw a taxi and hired us a way home. I was done and probably would have paid twice as much as I did at that point to not have to deal with the Metro anymore. Looking back the experience was funny, but at the time I was so done!!!