Oct. 28 The Capital Building

Heading out this rainy morning, the GPS headed us on a route that we hadn't been on before. Even though it was longer and there still was a lot of traffic, it was supposed to be shorter than the other two routes we've taken which take us through tunnels going under the harbor. This route took us over the Francis Scott Key bridge. It is about 4 miles from Fort McHenry that we visited yesterday. Francis Scott Key was in a boat about two miles closer to the fort when he saw the flag still waving. It is quite an impressive bridge! When we got into Washington, we met with Joe, one of Senator Cory Gardner's aids who gave us a tour of the Capital building. From there we spent some time in the Museum of American History and saw the actual flag that was flown over the fort on that September morning in 1814. Because of it's delicate condition, no photos are allowed, but it is very cool to see.
I'll try to get a few pics posted, but then need to get a few hours sleep because we have a very early morning to get back into DC for our White House tour.

Francis Scott Key Bridge

Rotunda in Russell Senate Building where senators sometimes hold press conferences 

There is a whole underground tunnel system between the senate buildings, the capital, and the house of representative buildings.
We got to ride in this cool tram with a senator from Vermont. It is apparently very unusual that a senator would invite "commoners" to ride the same tram with him. Even our guide, Joe, was impressed. 

Each state could send 2 statues to be placed in the capital building. This is Jack Swigert from Colorado. A really cool thing about this is that you can see a refection of the capital dome in his shiny helmet from whatever angle you happen to be looking at it (there are some windows in the roof to his left).

Statue of Freedom-Read more about this plaster cast below. 

Old Supreme Court 

Plaque dedicated to the people who died on the flight in Pennsylvania on 9-11. The terrorists were planning to crash that plane into the capital building. These people who prevented that from happening. 

Inside the capital rotunda. They hope to be through with the work of repairing and reinforcing the capital dome in time for the next president coming into office in Jan. 2017. They said that if all the pipe in the scaffolding was laid end to end, it would be more than 50 miles long.

There is a brass place in the floor of the old House of Representative chambers for each president who also served as a Representative.

It was said that John Quincy Adams would not let his desk be moved from this particular spot. He would sometimes lay his head on his desk and appear to be sleeping. However, they suspect that he wasn't actually catching a little nap. Joe walked several yards away and spoke to us in a quiet voice. Even with many other people in the room talking, we could hear him quite clearly and loudly! Old JQ was no doubt just listening in on some conversation from across the room!

Old Senate  Chambers

Back to the Metro to go to the Museum of American History 

Still holding hands after all these years! 

Oct. 27 Fort McHenry

We visited Fort McHenry today. It is the Baltimore fort in the Chesapeake Bay that was besieged with bombs and mortars from British ships in the harbor for 25 hours during the War of 1812. (The bombardment actually happened in Sept. 1814). Francis Scott Key, an American, was on a ship in the harbor during the battle. He wrote the words for The Star Spangled Banner the next morning when the fight ended and he could see that "the flag was still there".

While a few of the facts presented in this you tube video vary from what the National Park Service present, it is still a pretty good representation of what happened, if you want to refresh your memory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaxGNQE5ZLA

The fort is well preserved and was a really interesting tour with  information on how it has been utilized in the years since the War of 1812,

This evening we went for ribs at a place that Tom has been bragging about. It was voted Best Ribs in Baltimore and is famous for it's "fall off the bones" ribs. It certainly lived up to Tom's build-up. We all had a wonderful meal and celebrated Jim and Joe's birthdays while we were all together. We had to have some dessert to go with the sundaes that the birthday boys got!

Was happy to see the picture of the Girl Scout in this video of what The Star Spangled  Banner means to people.

Oysters on the half shell, anyone? 

Jim and one of the British cannon balls 

They fly different sized flags depending on the weather. This one is next to the largest size. The big one is the size of the original that is now displayed in the National Museum of American History.  

To the Corner Stable for ribs! 

Bread Pudding 

Molten Lava Chocolate Cake 

Oct. 26 The Country Bumpkins and the Big City

Monday morning started with another amazing meal provided by Tom and Tena and then we headed south to the campground to join up with Chuck and Marlyn and Jim and Paula (unfortunately for them, they didn't have quite as good of breakfast).
From there we found the metro station and tried to figure out how to buy our tickets, how to go through the turnstiles, retrieve our tickets, maneuver the transport chairs through the turnstiles and to an elevator or up the escalator, find the right train, figure out the right stop, discover where we were when we came up from the metro station in Washington DC, find bathrooms, find the trolley stop, figure out where to eat... Luckily for us there were many kind and helpful people to assist us as we went along! We took the Old Town Trolley and had a tour of the monuments and federal building with narration of interesting facts as we went along. We took another trolley to Arlington Cemetery. Unfortunately, we got to it late enough in the day so that we weren't able to get off and actually see the main sites (JFK's grave and the eternal flame, Tomb of the Unknowns, etc.). It was still an interesting tour, just a bit disappointing. We then got to go to the Lincoln Memorial, the WWII Memorial and look up so many of our family who served in the war, the Korean Memorial and the Vietnam Memorial. By this time it was getting late and we hoofed it seven block to the nearest metro station to head back toward Baltimore.

On the Metro

Washington Monument 

The trees were beautiful! 

The White House 

Jefferson Memorial 

 Arlington  Cemetery

Mr. Lincoln 

The Aldrich Contingency  

Jim and Aunt Colene with Flat Stanley (for her great-grandson) at the Korean Memorial 

WWII Memorial 

And the moon is rising! 

Vietnam Memorial

Charles Erwin was from Lamont and in my graduating class. He was killed in Vietnam a year after we graduated.  

We were hungry when we go back, so headed to what looked to be an easy/short distance to an IHOP. Our GPS said that we had arrived, but we couldn't find it! This turned into quite a circus involving many u-turns, and after finally finding it, getting onto the interstate when we thought that we were turning into the parking lot for it, losing Chuck and Marlyn completely, Joe and Darlene and the Aunts getting to it and ordering while David and I and Jim and Paula were still trying to figure out where we were. It was one of those "you just had to be there" situations. Chuck and Marlyn ended up having a "date" and eating by themselves. We were really kind of lost for a bit but ended up driving past the metro station that we had just left 20 minutes earlier and retraced our path to get to the IHOP for a late supper. It was such a silly situation that we couldn't stop laughing.

Zombie attack at IHOP