Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Last Full Day in DC

So far on our visit to Washington DC, we had kept to a busy schedule and seen lots of historical & amazing sights.  But our last day we wanted to slow it down a bit.  We started by "sleeping in" and enjoying a big breakfast down in the hotel restaurant. Then, since it was Sunday, we headed off to church.  We decided to attend worship at St. John's Episcopal Church for a few reasons.  One, location and history.  This church is just across Lafayette Square, behind the White House. Open since 1816 it is known as the "Church of the Presidents" - every US President, beginning with James Madison, has attended the occasional service there, many becoming members. It is also the church where Abraham Lincoln often went to pray in the evenings during the Civil War. Second, outreach of the church.  Even though this was something we really wouldn't have time to be involved in as one-day visitors, we were glad to discover (via the church's website) that they had a preschool program, lots of outreach to the neighborhood youth and families, and programs & services in Spanish. Third, music festival!  When we looked up the church's website, we saw that they were having a "Choral Eucharist" the day we planned to attend, with selections from the Brahms and Faure' Requiems.  Sweet!  Beautiful choir and strings - and the organist rocked :-)
As you may know, eucharist is communion.  You may also know that the Episcopalians don't mess around with Welch's, they use real wine.  So after we had taken communion, and were walking back to our seats, I said to Simon, "What did you think?"  He answered, "It was different than our communion."
The front of the church building
The view walking out of the church
Beautiful flowers!

What?  The Obamas aren't home?
Walking back to our hotel
After a quick lunch and a change of shoes, we headed back to the mall to see a few more of the memorials and monuments. I have to say that the weather was absolutely beautiful for our entire trip and I was so glad that we were able to walk everywhere we needed and wanted to go. Here are a few highlights from our afternoon...

We traveled past the White House again, this time from the other side.
They were busy decorating for Memorial Day Celebrations
From the front (back?) of the White House, we could see Michelle's kitchen garden and bee boxes!
On our way there we also passed one of our favorite restaurants - the hot dog cart!  Who can resist?

Ninja Turtle popsicle
The World War II Memorial was our first stop, and it was a hard one.  I had mentioned earlier that Drew very recently lost his dad.  His father was a Navy veteran from WWII and his father had just visited this memorial in the fall as part of the Honor Flight program - we had seen pictures, video, and a feature on the local news.  So, at times, it was overwhelming - but good.





Next, we headed for the Lincoln Memorial. 
The kids with "Honest Abe"
Standing where King stood
 Then we traveled over to the new Martin Luther King Memorial.  Very powerful.
Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope
We ended our day with paddleboats in the Tidal Basin down by the Jefferson Memorial.  We had seen a lot, but the pace was easy.  It was a relaxing, enjoyable day.



Time for dinner and a little packing.  We head out in the morning...

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