Ok, this is ridiculous. Smithsonian!

Hi! Let's talk about the hours between 10am and 3pm on April Fool's Day, 2016.

After our morning walk through the war memorials, and a brief visit to this gentleman on the grounds of the National Academies..

...the giant bus disgorged all forty-nine of us at the steps of the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum shortly before 10. Then our guides cut us loose. Just Moon Pie and me.

I don't have a proper camera to capture the Air & Space, so here are two photos that - I hope - illustrate the density and size of the displays.

Next, I dragged Moon Pie into the Hirshhorn, the modern art museum. He was skeptical at first ("I could do that!"), but that didn't last long. I knew I could pique his interest in contemporary art. Traditional is a harder sell. Here's one of our favorite displays, not really a work of art, but my son liked it.

We took a photo outside the Hirshnorn, because the shape of the building is so cool.

I could've spent the next two hours in the National Galleries, but I couldn't do that to my kid. So, we finished our time in the Museum of Natural History.

The rotunda is beautiful, inside and out. Our first mission was to photograph all the most odd-looking animals we could find.

The gemstone and mineral exhibit was vast. We discovered that, in addition to beautiful gemstones (emerald, topaz, sapphire, the Hope Diamond), there are minerals on Earth that look like silver hair, slabs of toffee, and gorgeous fatty blobs.

This sample was huge; taller than me, with the pedestal. I wish I could remember what it is, but it looked as if someone had moved it over from the Hirshhorn.

I know paying taxes isn't pleasant, my friends, but after visiting the Smithsonian I'm a more willing taxpayer. These museums are gorgeous. We visited only a fraction of the museums on offer, and admission is absolutely free.

Memorials

Hello! It's been a busy summer, but nevertheless, I press on with this East Coast travelogue. We landed at Reagan International on March 28; this post will describe our day on April 1. (Actually, it won't, because we spent four hours of April 1 at the Smithsonian museums. The Smithsonian Institution gets a separate post.)

The bus rolled at 7:15 am. Our first stop was the Korean War Memorial, and from there we walked to the Vietnam and Lincoln memorials.

At the Vietnam Memorial, we were busy rubbing a name off the wall (Jay Manchester, a friend of my dad's) so took no photos. I did get a shot of the Vietnam Women's Memorial with my phone.

Next: the Lincoln Memorial.

According to legend, the face of Robert E. Lee is sculpted onto the back of Lincoln's head. Speaking of Robert E. Lee, his former home was our next stop.

To make a very long, historically-significant story short, George Washington's step-grandson, (last name Custis) built a grand house on a hill overlooking Washington. Robert E. Lee married his granddaughter, and the mansion was their home for thirty years. During the Civil War, the U.S. government seized the property and began burying Union soldiers near the house. Today, the Custis house sits atop Arlington National Cemetery.

At the top of the photo is the Custis home; below is the eternal flame on John F. Kennedy's grave. The next picture is the view from the house.

Our school placed a wreath at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Note: You can't just walk up to this tomb and put flowers on it. It's guarded at all hours, in all weather, by military Sentinels who undergo strenuous training and testing for the privilege. To participate in a wreath-laying ceremony, Firm Foundation submitted a request with Arlington National Cemetery in advance, and held an essay contest to determine which students would participate.

It is not considered proper to sit down at Arlington, no matter now inviting the various granite walls and ledges appear, and no matter how tired your legs are. We stood gladly, because Arlington is a lovely and sober place. The people underground may rest, and those of us paying respect can stand.

If we stood in a wobbly manner, it was due to the morning march through all those memorials, and several hours spent at the Smithsonian Museums.

As I mentioned, the Smithsonian gets its own post, if I can fit it all into one.

White House, Ford's Theater, U.S. Capital

Life has been busy around here.

Where were we?  Our group arrived on the East Coast on Monday, March 28, and we've now reached the morning of Thursday, March 31. On this day, our bus rolled at 7:00 a.m. Gazing at the White House in peace requires beating the crowds.

It was a beautiful morning (did I mention that all the cherry trees were blooming?), and we did beat the crowds. The security contingent in front of the White House had an easy job with our group. Occasionally, an officer walked through our crowd with his dog, scanning and sniffing.

The White House visitor's center is nearby; we spent an hour there. It's an interesting place, with displays on the house's history, stories of the families who've lived there, and, of course, an irresistible gift shop.

Next stop was Ford's Theater, where President Lincoln was shot. The theater still holds plays every evening, but during the day, they present a drama describing Lincoln's shooting. After watching, we filed across the street to the house where they took the injured president, and looked into the bedroom where he died.

We intended to eat lunch at the Reagan building, but the lines (of eighth-graders) outside were so long that some of our kids almost cried. We stayed on the bus and drove straight to the U.S. Capitol. Who know the Capitol has a gigantic cafeteria, selling an amazing variety of dishes? After lunch, we gathered upstairs for our tour.

I was too busy gawking to take photographs. Besides, the Rotunda, of which I wanted pictures, was being "maintained."

Under the sheeting and behind the lower scaffolding, some of the wall murals were visible.

We were back at the hotel by 6:00 pm. This was our evening to relax and catch up on sleep, which was a life-saver. Our blessed History teacher and a few other dads watched the kids while they swam, so the remaining adults could collapse.

I woke up the next morning feeling more human than I had all week. Good thing, because Friday would be packed: The agenda included monuments and memorials, the Smithsonian, the National Archives, and a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.

Day Two: Mount Vernon to D.C.

Hi all.  At long last, here's my account of our 8th-grade class trip, day two.

Like every morning of the trip, our alarms rang early, and we brought our luggage to the lobby if need be, gathered for breakfast, and boarded the bus. Most mornings, our bus left at or before 8 a.m.

We arrived at Mt. Vernon - as most of you know, George Washington's farm, by 10 a.m.

No wonder General Washington didn't want to be President. He loved his big, beautiful farm. I could tell, because all over the grounds, signs quoted the letters and journals in which he directed how the farm should run. He wrote about the orchards, the vegetables, the livestock, the foundries and fisheries. Mt. Vernon did have fisheries - the property slopes down to the Potomac River, and some years the shad harvest brought in more money than the cash crops.

We toured the mansion, but no photography allowed. The kitchen wasn't inside the house, however (typical - fire hazard).

We walked all over as many acres as we could. We peeked into the blacksmith shop, the weaving room, the horse barn and the tack room, walked down the hill to the Potomac, then back up, stopping at the Washington family's graves.

Back on the bus, we rode to D.C. When we arrived, we had time to visit the WWII Memorial before our tour of the Holocaust museum.

The monument is circular, with pools and a central fountain. Arched towers represent the War's geographic theaters, and pillars represent every State and Territory that sent soldiers to fight.

After the lovely, sunlit WWII Memorial, we visited the Holocaust Museum, which was somber, inside and out. The museum is artfully designed, thoroughly informative, a must-see for anyone curious about the subject and not a place for pictures. We departed feeling sick about man's inhumanity to man.

After supper at D.C.'s beautiful downtown train station, we drove to the Tidal Basin, and took a night tour of the surrounding monuments and memorials.

If you ever want to lose your mind, try keeping track of your 13-year-old son amid throngs of people, most of them aged thirteen, while walking in an unlit area at night. Correction: there's lighting, but it's all directed at the monuments. I didn't take many photos.

 I caught Martin Luther King...

...photographed the Washington Monument from across the water...

...and don't remember much about the FDR Memorial because I couldn't track my kid in the dark. My kid, mind you, had no interest in being tracked.

Someone took a shot of Moon Pie and me, with the Jefferson Memorial in the background. We walked to it, too, but as we reached it my phone and camera batteries both died. It was gorgeous, anyway.

End day two!