April Vacation in Washington DC

Ms. Edwards took students down to Washington DC for the third time in her teaching career....last time they went to New York as well. This is the first time that I was able to go with her and Ms. Wood.

This trip was a small one. Four adults, six students, Kennedy and myself. On this trip we were actually able to fly because of the small number of students. We flew out of Portland and into Baltimore (with a stop a brief lay over). We spent the first night in Baltimore in an amazing hotel....sign me up for a week please :)

The next day we got on our tour bus and headed to the Washington. We spent the day exploring the Smithsonian. Ms. Edwards, Mr. Rowley, Ms. Wood and a few of the kids went to the US History Museum. It had been closed for a few years due to renovations. In the afternoon we went to the Holocaust Museum. The group then went to Union Station for a few hours and meet up with the rest of the tour group (two other schools). We then explored some monuments in the city and headed to our hotel.

The next day we continued on our adventure. We headed to Virginia for the day after seeing a few memorials in the city again. We made a stop at Mount Vernon were the students went into the house and Ms. Edwards, Ms. Wood, Kennedy and I walked around the grounds. After spending time at Mount Vernon we went to Alexandria where we had dinner and a ghost tour. We also had time to walk around the city a little and pick up some yummy candy and a store recommended by the tour guide.

The third day we went to Ford's Theater, and the Best T-shirt store there is....cheap t-shirts for everyone :) Ms. Edwards, Ms. Wood, Kennedy, a few students and I went to the Newsmuseum where we had a chance to walk around four floors of the history of news. This is a new museum to the city and was the first time that Ms. Edwards and I had the chance to see it. Not a bad place to spend a few hours :) The rest of the group went to the Verizon center for a little bowling. On the third day we also had the chance to see the Capitol building visitors center, the Library of Congress and the Supreme Court building.

On the fourth and final day we took a tour of Embassy Row. Ms. Edwards slept through all of that....and we went to the zoo. After the zoo we headed to the airport where we discovered that our flight had been canceled due to weather and that instead of flying into New Jersey we were now flying home via a stop in Michigan. Added a little time to our flight. As did sitting on the runway for about an hour. There was some question as to whether we were going to be delayed overnight due to weather....we weren't though.

We arrived home and I tucked right into bed....what a great four days we had. I think the best part was the sitting around in the lobby every night with the kids. We ordered pizza every night. At first we sat around talking...by the third night someone got the idea to pick up some phase 10 cards and we played.

Here is a picture of Ms. Edwards and Ms. Wood in the morning :)
Kidding.....these are two of the Apes at the National Zoo

Lunch time for the Panda. There was a little guy hanging around somewhere. Never say him though.

One of the sides of the World War II Memorial. If you look close enough you will notice the Maine column.

Flags at the World War II Memorial

More World War II Pictures

Guess you know one our favorite memorials.

One side of the White House

The other side of the White House

The church near the White House that all Presidents have attended for a service or two.

Printing press at the Newsmusem

Picture of an armband. Students wore these bands to protest the Vietnam War and were suspended until the agreed not to wear them. The Supreme Court later ruled that the students had the right to wear them as a sign of protest.

A piece of the World Trade Center

All of the front pages of newspapers in the United States and parts of the World from September 11, 2001

From the roof of the Newsmuseum Ms. Edwards took a picture of the excitement happening on the street below. It had something to do with an abandoned car.

A piece of the Berlin Wall

Statue outside of the US Capitol.

Side view of the US Capitol

US Supreme Court Building

US Supreme Court Building

Capitol Dome

Inside the Library of Congress

Inside of the Library of Congress

View of the Capitol building

Ford's Theater: Location where Lincoln was shot

Another view of Ford's Theater

Lincoln from the Lincoln Memorial

Location that Martin Luther King Jr. spoke when he gave his "I Have a Dream Speech"

Lincoln Memorial

View from Mount Vernon

Memorial to the slaves that lived and worked at Mount Vernon

Mount Vernon: Home of George Washington

Memorial to the Nurses

Korean War Memorial

War Memorial

Vietnam War Memorial

Iwo Jima Memorial

Mast of the Battleship Maine. It exploded before the Spanish American War

Tombs at the Arlington Cemetery

Changing of the Guard Ceremony

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

Grave of Robert Kennedy

Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson Memorial

More Jefferson Memorial

Kennedy, Martin and Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt

Kennedy, Martin and Franklin D. Roosevelt

Martin and Kennedy standing in the food line.

Martin and Kennedy listening to the radio

Martin, Kennedy, and Franklin D. Roosevelt

Martin going for a ride.

Martin for President

Washington Monument

Holocaust Museum

Flowers From April Vacation

Pictures from Washington DC and Virginia
April Vacation 2009

Inauguration

Well.........we did it..... We actually went to Washington DC for the Inauguration.

Ms. Edwards and Ms. Wood decided to drive down the day before the event and stay over night at a friend of Ms. Wood. We rented a car and drove....and drove....and drove....down to DC. We got stuck in traffic around New York City.

We arrived in DC around 7 PM and tried to return the car to Union Station. We were then going to get onto the metro and take a ride to Ms. Wood's friends. She lives out the city near the cathedral. Well....the plan didn't work out very well. Union Station was closed down and it was impossible to even get the car close to finding out. There were road blocks all over the place. Because so many different police officers were from out of the area they weren't any help with directions or suggestions as to how to get to a different location or entrance. Ms. Wood had to ask five people before she discovered that Union Station was closed. We had to drive the Reagan National and leave the car there. We took the Metro from Reagan to the Cathedral area of Virginia.

We spent the night in Virginia and got up early and headed back to Reagan National to meet Mr. Rowley. The four or us (Mr. Rowley, Ms. Edwards, Ms. Wood and myself) caught a ride on the metro into Washington. The metro ride in was extremely crowded. Everyone was liked sardines standing in the metro. I was so happy to be in the backpack.

After we got off the metro we headed to the blue section. This was in the area of the the Native American museum. We followed the crowd and stood in line for over an hour in a half. We circled one of the extremely large buildings with everyone else who had tickets for the blue sections.


We stood in line for over an hour and half and was within sight of our gate. The Inauguration had already started and we were still working our way to the entrance where we would have our bags checked. They ended up closing the gate because the crowd started pushing to get through the gate. We ended up leaving the area and walking around some to see if we could get a view from a different location. We ended up near the Native American museum and were able to hear the conclusion of President Obama's speech and the ending of the ceremony.


After the ceremony was over we started making our way out of the mall area. The only problem was that everyone else who was there had the exact same idea. Unlike other times when we have visited the mall area of Washington DC there were fences up everywhere that made it impossible to get out. We had to follow the crowd like cattle looking for the one gate that would lead us out of the area. We eventually made it out.

Mr. Rowley decided to to head back to the airport and wait until his flight left. He went and stood in line at one of the metros for over an hour trying to get out. Ms. Wood, Ms. Edwards and I decided to walk around a little and try and get over to one of their favorite t-shirt stores in the area. BIG BIG BIG mistake.

We ended up getting lost in DC and couldn't find our way out.....There were no taxi's and the buses were very limited. We ended up walking around for three hours. Every metro station that we came to had HUGE lines and we later learned that the Metro stations were actually shut down for a part of the day due to all the heavy traffic.

Thank goodness Ms. Wood had a friend down in DC. She ended up picking us up around Dupont Circle and driving us all the way to the airport in Baltimore Maryland. Without her help we would have missed our plane home and wouldn't have made it back to school the next day to tell all the students about.


Here is a picture of me hanging out on the back of the rental car. Ms. Wood's mother made my hat for me. Ms. Wood and Ms. Edwards had matching hats as well. It made it easier for us all to stay together while in DC.

I was extremely happy to see home. DC during the Inauguration is NO Fun....but the day was well worth it....now.