Washington D.C.

First I just want to say that the Alaska picture slide show thingy totally didn't turn out very well but I think it was because I was so frustrated that I had to do it again. Plus I didn't have all the pictures I wanted. But anyway it gives you at least an idea.

OK. This trip was pretty much a last minute decision but it was definitely a good one! If I haven't posted this already, Jason and I are trying to go to all 50 States together and so far we have gone to about 19. So this trip was to help accomplish that goal and to see our nations Capital. We left on Friday, August 29th and when we got there we got the rental car (which ended up being a Mustang of all cars) and drove right to D.C. from our hotel in Dulles. We saw the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, and the Whitehouse the first day. I'll tell you one thing I don't like about D.C. is there is NO parking!!! It took us forever to figure out where to park and then when we finally found a place we walked forever and of course I didn't wear the best of shoes so my feet started to hurt. We probably walked three or four miles just to see the things I mentioned above. It was way cool though! Plus it was later at night like around 6:00 so there weren't that many people. I couldn't believe that it was dark by 8:00 pm but it was so some of our pictures didn't turn out as well as we hoped. The next day we basically did the same thing by going to downtown D.C. and looking at more of the sights. THERE IS SO MUCH TO SEE!!! We stopped at a couple of monuments before heading directly there like the Air Force Memorial and the Pentagon and we tried to see Iwo Jima Monument but we couldn't get there cause of road closures even though we had our GPS. Anyway some of the other sites we saw were the Library of Congress, the National Archives (we actually went in the building on Monday) and the Air and Space Museum (I think that is what it was called). On Sunday we drove up to Gettysburg, PA to see, well....Gettysburg! That was pretty cool but the best part was the museum that had actual artifacts and clothing of the confederates and the union soldiers. The whole National Park was huge and went throughout the town and had over 1,300 monuments. Obviously we didn't stop at each one cause we would have been there for a week. But they also had some actors that were dressed like the soldiers and they fired off some cannons (of course not with cannon balls). It was a really cool experience and made me that much more proud of our country and of course extremely grateful for what they were fighting for. On the way back we stopped at the Antietam National Park where there was another battle and it was the bloodiest day in history. 23,000 people died in one day of battle here. Then Monday we went back to downtown D.C. and looked at more, yes, more monuments and memorials like the Roosevelt memorial, Jefferson memorial, we went back to the Lincoln Memorial to get better pictures and then we went inside the National Archives museum to see the actual Declaration of Independence the Constitution and other actual documents. All I could think of while we were there was the movie "National Treasure." It was really cool though. The pictures that I will post are really dark cause you can't have any flash photography in the room cause it will destroy the preservation of the documents. After that we had to head to the airport to come home. All in all it was an awesome trip. Of course I would have liked more time but it was fun to just get away for a weekend. I would definitely recommend going there someday when you get the chance. Lastly I just want to say that I love my job cause of the benefits it gives us and the opportunities to see the country and hopefully the world!!!