The Nations Capital

The next morning we got our late start as we already knew that the race for the cure would be stalling all shuttles. We headed to Arlington Cemetery as that tour would start on time and we headed out for the first tour of the day. The tour was very interesting as I learned many things about Arlington Cemetery that I had never known. It was interesting to learn that it was formerly Robert E. Lee’s house. He left it when he moved back to his home state of Virginia to join the confederate army. When public outcry came about as a result of bodies being buried on the field of the battle where the soldier had lost his life the government needed to find a location to bury the bodies. Without scouting they decided to use Lee’s home as they viewed him as a traitor. They also hoped that this would prevent him from ever coming back. Now to acquire the property they planned on seizing it from unpaid taxes. It was the law at the time that property taxes needed to be paid in person. Mrs. Lee sent her cousin to pay the taxes, however, because it was not her in person they refused the money, which was $92, and seized the property.
From there we headed onto a bus to visit the National Mall. When we first started out we planned on seeing several monuments and two of the Smithsonian Museums. However, the first thing that happened was our bus broke down. This caused a delay of about an hour while we waited for a new bus to come. So we stopped at the Lincoln Memorial. It was so crowded that it was difficult to move around. We got back on the bus and rode around. I will suggest that if you are headed to DC to skip the Tourmobile tours and park at Union Station and purchase tickets to the circulator. Once we saw how long the bus was taking going around the National Mall I decided to just head to the most important place first. Which was the Air and Space Museum for Blake. We got to see the Wright Brother Exhibit and then as many exhibits that would could until it was time to watch the Hubble IMAX movie. This was a documentary about astronauts going to do the last repair on Hubble. Of course we stopped at the gift shop to pick up a bobble-head Einstein just like “Night at the Museum 2.”
We went outside to get our bus and found a note on the sign that said due to Race for the Cure and directing us to walk to the temporary location for pick up at the corner. Now remember this is the same place that they dropped us off at. So I try to be patient even though this has already gone so poorly. We just miss the bus and wait another 20 minutes for the next one. We were excited to see the bus heading toward us after our wait and were thinking about sitting down and getting off our tired feet; Until it pulled right by us. Furiously I walked quickly across the park hoping to catch the next bus on the other side. I stew as we sit there waiting and pretty much most of the drive back to the Cemetery. Quietly I stew as we drive to Williamsburg. Until I see a thunder and lighting storm. I love lighting so we pulled into Williamsburg with a happy mama.
We got the key to the cabin and the kids were excited to jump on the jumping pillow and swimming. The key didn’t fit though and we had to call down to the desk. An hour later after we had been moved to another cabin we walked down to the pool and found that it was closed. There were plenty of tears but we headed to take our showers and back to the cabin. At the cabin we started to read Misty of Chincoteague and the kids fell asleep in the third chapter.