Washington, DC

Sinday, October 20th: On the coach at 8 a.m! Stu is our tour director and he is very happy when we are all on time! The White House is our first stop. It is nippy out!

On the left is the First Lady's vegetable garden.

Off to see the Capitol! The dome was completed in 1863, amazing considerng the Union was fighting a war, literally fighting for their life.

10:00 a.m. We have tickets for Ford's Theatre. There is a museum downstairs with the derringer that John Wilkes Booth used to kill Lincoln. A small but deadly weapon.

Question...could modern medicine have saved him? Answer....NoI

A recreation of the theater...after Lincoln's death, no one wanted to go to Ford's Theatre...there was the aura of tragedy and death.

The box seats to the upper right were the ones that Lincoln used that evenng. Ulysses Grant and his wife were invited by the Lincolns to join them that evening, but were not able to go. Another couple went instead. They had not decided to go until 1:00 that afternoon! John Wilkes Booth, a prominent actor at that time

got his mail at Ford's theater when he was in town. He was there when Ford learned that Lincoln was attending that evening, and Ford told him. Booth only had the next 9 hours to put the assassination plan into effect. He had intended that VP Johnson and Secy of State Seward also be assassinated that evening, but that did not happen.

Lincoln was carried across the street to the Peterson House, the rose colored building. They knew he was mortally wounded and just wanted to get him to a bed.

Mrs. Lincoln waited in this parlor for word about her husband.

He died in this room, but this is not the actual bed. We saw the actual blood-stained pillow at the Reagan Library in September when they had a wonderful exhibit on Lincoln.

This is the room where Seward was transacting the nation 's business as Lincoln died.

This is a stack of the books that have been written about Lincoln, four stories high.

On to lunch!

Lunch at The Mansion on O Street at Dupont Circle, a very eclectic place where everything is for sale. I enjoyed the jambalaya and Bob liked the Southern fried chicken. It is also a bed and breakfast. They have many rooms with various decor...one is a log cabin!

We sat with some other Californians, Northern Californians on the left and Southern Californians on the right...not planned, just happened.

Off to Arlington and it is a beautiful day, crisp, cool and clear. We have an outstanding guide named John.

We take a tram and our first stop is the JFK burial site...Jackie and the two babies who pre-deceased them are buried there also. Bobby and Teddy Kennedy are buried in Arlington, too.

The eternal flame for JFK.

The next tram stop is the Changing of the Guard, followed by a laying of a wreath. It happens behind this building.

 

Four children, grade school age, are presenting the wreath.

The last stop was Arlington House, the former home of Robert E. Lee who was married to the great granddaughter of Martha Washington. The cemetery was his former plantation. The house was built by his father-in-law, George Washington Parke Custis.

When the Union got control of this area and this home, they dug graves right next to Mary Anna Lee's cherished flower garden, so she would always be aware of the deaths caused by the Civil War. In the photo on the left, you can barely see some of the tombstones. After the war, the property was confiscated and the Lees never lived there again.

This is the Victorian Parlor and the furniture that Robert and Mary bought when they had their first home. They brought this furniture to Arlington. The rest of Arlington is decorated in an earlier Colonial style with furniture that belonged to Mary's parents.

We returned to our hotel, had about an hour before returning to the coach to go to dinner at The Caucus Room on 9th Street not far from Ford's Theater. It was opened this evening just for us. Very nice restaurant.

After dinner we went back to the Arlington area to see the Iwo Jima statue at night.

Monday morning, October 21, we have a fascinating lecture at the hotel given by Hari Jones, Curator of the African American Civil War Museum, describing the events leading up to the Emancipation Proclamation...Seeking emancipation in league with the Constitution. He was a captain in the Marines, and he told his men that after he was out, he would not cut his hair for ten years. It has been 16 years.

Hari's talk was dynamic.

Our coach drove us to the Archives where we saw the original Declaration of Independence. The only signsture I could read was John Hancock. The Constitution was there and only 12 states signed it. Who did not sign it? Little Rhode Islamd was afraid they would be overcome by the larger states. The Bill of Rights was there also. Then we had a tour of the Archives especially looking at Civil War items. After that we heard a lecture on searching the records in the Archives. We could easily stay there for a couple weeks looking at all of the exhibits and researching our ancestral records.

Our coach took any of us who wanted to go to a museum on the mall or back to the hotel. We went to the Indian Museum. This time the door was open. We had lunch at their interesting and delicious cafe. I had a red pepper relleno from South America and two sides from the Northwest, kale and red cabbage with corn. Bob had an Indian taco from the Southwest. We visited the exhibits....the new ones as we have been there before.

Mittens from Alaska, 1983

Christian Louboutin high heels, Pauma Valley, California, 2012

Costa Rica, 400-1350 AD, Greater Nicoya pottery vessel in the shape of a jaguar. This, the largest cat in Costa Rica, symbolizes power and leadership.

We walk over to the National Gallery of Art and see the special exhibit, Heaven and Earth, about Byzantine art. It is a terrific exhibit. From there we walk to the Metro stop Archives and take the metro, changing at Gallery Place to the red line which takes us to Farragut North. The exit is a block and a half from our hotel. After resting we go to the Executive Lounge where we see our friend, the host of the lounge, from a week ago. We have snacks in lieu of dinner, play cards, and tell him goodbye.

Tomorrow morning early we are off to Antietam and Gettysburg.

 

Posted with Blogsy