D.C. Day 1

We spent our first full day in our nations capital today.

Patti landed us a nice deal with 5 free nights at the Residence Inn Pentagon City, right across the street from, you guessed it.  As I type this I am sitting in bed looking to the North East at the Capital Dome and if I crane my neck I can see the Washington Monument.

We slept in this morning, until 5:15 Denver time and got our day rolling.  The girls enjoyed the very large breakfast buffet and especially the Belgian waffles and unlimited juice.  When then hopped the metro which the kids are old pros at from our last trip.

We decided to start the trip with a tour aboard iGuides that Patti snagged off of Groupon and it was a nice way to get oriented with the city.

First stop was the Capital..

As you can tell, Sunday is a nice quiet day in D.C.  The White House was also on our tour stop today.  I did not get my photo op with the President, will try again on Tuesday.  

Among our stops was at the Jefferson Memorial which was a pantheon-esque style building with a statue of the man in the middle.  There were four panels of writing which surrounded and faced the bronze.  The words were very powerful and demonstrated a clear tie to our responsibilities toward each other being a function of our relationship to God.

Construction of the Jefferson monument began in the late 1930s and was completed in the 40's and it's language stands in start contrast to that of the Roosevelt memorial which was complete in 1997.  I was unable to find a single mention of the word or reference to the concept of the Almighty, I may have missed it.  There was the inscription of the Four Freedoms which it seems might cave in upon themselves if the object of worship demanded the deprecation of the other freedoms listed.

Our guided tour ended there and lunch time had come upon us.  Hey 80's boys' remember Night Rider?  We saw this beauty in the cafeteria (go figure) in the American History Museum.

Our last stop of the day was Arlington National Cemetary where the bodies of over 400,000 military personnel and other heads of state are buried.  This was a very sobering reminder of the cost of war and the sacrifice that so many families have made over so many years.  I was once again reminded that sin is the root cause of all war.  Our failure to live in peace among nations and ultimately among one another.  Riley innocently remarked that the headstones looked like dominos and I could not help but think that many of these men fell in such a way.

My God, how we rage against one another, have mercy on us.

More images in the links section.