Saturday night we went out. We watched a lot of football. We went to bed really late.
The alarm went off at 7:00. It stopped. Then it went off again, and again, and again and finally, out of fear of smashing it, it was turned off. I was awakened around 10:00. After a nice dose of Tylenol and water I got dressed and we headed out.
First stop: Pentagon 9/11 Memorial. Considering I have an obsession with New York and not so much with DC I hadn’t really heard much about the memorial. I knew there were benches, but didn’t know much else. The design of it was actually really, really cool. There were two type of benches: one that faced the Pentagon for those that were on Flight 77 and one that faced outward for those that were in the Pentagon.
There was a zero line that was the time that the flight hit the Pentagon and then there were age lines past that.
The first line was 1998 for Dana Falkenberg, the youngest victim: just over three years old. They went up from there in chronological ordered.
There was also a wall that started at three inches tall, for the youngest victim, age 3, up to seventy-one inches tall for the oldest victim, age 71. Under each bench was a small reflecting pool as well as a plaque that had the names of family members that were also killed in the attack.
Overall it was pretty spectacular.
From there we headed to Arlington. I had two things on the agenda for Arlington: the Kennedy graves and the Tomb of the Unknown Solider, specifically the changing of the guard. Seeing that it was already after 11:00 and my bus left at 1:15 seeing both seemed somewhat unlikely. HOWEVER, this is me we’re talking about and things just seem to work out for me.
Arlington was absolutely breathtaking. The fact that the trees were in full autumn bloom helped, but I cannot imagine that it is not gorgeous year round.
We started up the hill to the Kennedys and saw the eternal flame along with JFK, Jackie and the two children they lost while he was in office.
We then went down a ways to Robert Kennedy’s grave and around the corner to Ted Kennedy’s grave (that one was cool because I watched the service).
Next we headed to the Tomb of the Unknown Solider.
In true Wendy fashion we ended up getting to see the changing of the guard.
From there we hurriedly headed back to DC so I could catch my bus. We said our goodbyes and I headed into Union Station to catch my bus.
The adventure that followed gets its own post…
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