Day 5-Robert E. Lee--Birth place

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This plantation was nice to see.  Robert E. Lee was born here and lived here until he was about 3.  It is interesting to see the architecture and how they lived and how the slaves lived and worked.  Clearing the land had to be a never-ending job for them. 

These are the gardens behind the house.  The little kids would have loved to run up and down the rows.  Instead of gravel along the walk ways there were crushed oyster shells.

Bryan was able to enjoy this vacation and work a little too.  His phone was on and he was working!

I loved all the carriages that each plantation had.  There were fancy but I bet rough to ride in!

There are real rivers back there.  These make ours look like a canal!  We have real mountains however.

This was the mina bird that kept us entertained at lunch.  He said quite a few phrases.
  The teachers got to go to Williamsburg on our own bus without the students so we could stop and eat at a nifty little diner.  More fresh seafood!

Day 4 Capitol Hill

The Capitol building is Huge!  It reminded me of the Utah State Capitol building.  This was taken in the afternoon.  It rained on us most of the day but thankfully, we were inside.

Margie and Bryan and his floppy umbrella.  We bought a new one and didn't use it.

The Capitol had "flying buttresses" in its architecture.  It was very ornate and beautiful.

These are both in the Library of Congress.  It really is a library and a couple of the kids signed up for a library card.  The top picture is the ceiling. 

This is the whole group that went except the two teachers and Jon and Vickie. 

This is Mike Lee the senator from Utah.  His dad was Rex Lee that was the president of BYU.  He told us that he used to like to go listen to his dad, who was a lawyer, argue cases.  He used that excuse to get out of school at first and then learned to love law. He was good to listen to.

Sierra at the capitol-in the rain!

Margie is in the middle in the blue and she won an award for  all her years of  coming to Close Up.

Later that evening, we went to see Dicken's Christmas Carol. 
It was very cute.

Bryan and Jon said the seats were small and good for short legged people.  I got along just fine, thank you very much!

Day 3--Gettysburg

Jon and Abe

We were brave and rented a car and drove a couple hours to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.  Well, Margie was our brave driver.  She's been to D.C. a bunch so she was comfortable.  After a funny turn down an alley, (because the GPS told us to!)  we were on our way.  It was an amazing trip.  I didn't know that there would be so much open space in Maryland!  There are beautiful green rolling hills and so many trees! 

Abe and Gorden, the other teacher that came on the trip with us.

There were monuments all over the town of Gettysburg.  When we arrived, we hired a man at the visitors center, pictured below, to drive us around and tell us the story of the battle.  It was the best thing ever!  He walked us through the 3 day battle step by step and it was so informative.  I understood all the things I had to memorize from History class that made no sense at all.  There are tons of monuments all over but he told us they only represent a man or a group so we didn't need to read them all--he was right.  The thing that I learned the most was that God's hand was in the winning of this battle. 

 

After our day at Gettysburg, we went to Georgetown which is about a mile from our hotel and had dinner at a great little place called Clyde's and had crab cakes!  After we went to Georgetown  cupcakes.  If you watch TLC there is a show on there called D.C. Cupcakes and it is about that shop.  They were delicious.  The flavors in the box include:  toffee crunch, pumpkin with maple frosting, red velvet with cream cheese frosting, chocolate cake with chocolate ganash frosting, chocolate with mint frosting, white cupcake, chocolate with sprinkles and banana nut with cream cheese frosting and cinnamon with cream cheese. Wow!

Teddy

 We walked over to an island devoted to Teddy Roosevelt. It was only about a mile from our motel.   It had this huge friendly statue and some of his famous quotes.  Notice, no coat on!

Day 2--Mt. Vernon, National Shrine, National Cathedral

 Jon, Vickie, Bonnie, Bryan enjoying the morning sun on the piazza at Mt. Vernon.

 The river is the view from the piazza.  It was relaxing to sit in the chairs and watch the river.

 

We drove across around and over the Potomac River every day.  It is dirty brown and very wide.

This is at Mt. Vernon, George Washington's plantation, and this is the Christmas Camel.  At first, he wouldn't look my way and then he turned his head and I didn't really want a sloppy kiss.

This is the view of Mt. Vernon house from the other end of the bowling green.

This is the back of the house.

 

The riding chair.

George wanted to be buried at Mt. Vernon so this was the old tomb.

Apparently, George was a progressive farmer and also an inventor.  This is a threshing floor.  The grain on the stock was dropped on the floor and  then a team of horses walked across it and the grains fell through the slats in the wood and they landed on this floor where they could be swept up and cleaned further.

 

It was a beautiful day and a very peaceful place.

 

Vickie and Bryan

His name is Peace.

Down town Old Town, Alexandria where Robert E. Lee went after the war.

Bryan and the huge doors at the National Shrine.  It was an amazing place but it smelled smokey.

It was huge!  You can barely see what is at the front of the place.

The National Cathedral

This view reminded me of Notre Dame movie.  I kept looking for the Gargoyles and, by darn, they were there. 

The scaffolding is to repair the damage caused by the earthquake that happened this spring.

Bryan walking beneath the flying buttresses that this cathedral is known for.

Washington D.C. with Close-up

The amazing thing is how many trees there are in this area.  You can't see anything!

 Flying the friendly skies.

 This is on the ground and it is huge.

Sierra and her friends with Elanor Roosevelt.

The Washington Monument-our guide in the city-if we could see it we weren't too lost.

It was kinda like the mountains here.

WWII memorial

The Lincoln Memorial--my personal favorite!

I learned that when they asked the president to give the Gettysburg Address, he was not the main speaker and was advised to speak just a few minutes and he was not the  "Main Event"  the first speaker spoke 2-3 hours and then Lincoln spoke for ninety seconds and everyone remembers this speech and it was important because he refocused the troops on the importance of the fight they were involved in.  It was amazing.

This was a part of the group we were with.  Margie is in the middle with sandals on.  She only put socks on a couple of the coldest days.  The weather was perfect-only one rainy day- with the first 3 days being above 65!  This is at the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial

Sierra and F.D.R.  His memorial was very grand and had all these big walls that led you through it.  I liked it as well.

If you can believe it, we went to D.C. with the high school to Close Up.  Jon, Vickie, Sierra and Bryan and I all went with 15 other students from MC.  Jon's sister Margie, is the teacher and she is so darn smart and so we had our own personal tour guide at every place we went.  We followed the kids around a couple of days and went on our own other days.  We were gone for a whole week-- a long time in the cattle business.  Bryan had his phone going so he could buy and sell a few head all along. 
These pictures are of our first day, Saturday there.  We flew into D.C. about 5:00 p.m. and saw all the monuments at night.  It was an amazing sight but poor pictures.  Sierra got to go during the day and her pics are better but she liked it better at night too.