Washington DC

We stayed at Cherry Hill RV Resort in College Park, Maryland and took the train/subway into the city. Very convenient and a really nice park!

And as you can see here, the trees were starting to change colors.

This sign was cute, it’s in the train stations where people would drop off their significant other to catch the train.

Down to the train! The longest and steepest escalator we have ever seen.

One of the first things we did was take this Hop On/Hop Off bus tour to see what we might want to return to later.

This used to be the visitors welcome center but was closed for renovations. According to our guide that was 7 years ago and as far as he could tell no work has begun on it! What a waste of a beautiful building!

A view of the Capitol Building from across the mall.

Nice views from the upper open deck of the tour bus!

The NEWSEUM, one of more interesting private museums, all about the news industry. (Probably a lot of Fake News!)

Washington DC is an interesting mixture of old and new architecture.

Our bus tour took us through Chinatown; we never knew they had one!

The Jefferson Memorial from the mall.

The view of the reflecting pool and the Washington Monument from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. What a gorgeous day!

The front of the Lincoln Memorial.

The Vietnam War Memorial Wall, very sobering to see in person! There are 58,272 names on the wall including 1200 who are listed as missing (MIA’s, POW’s and others). Six names were added as recently as 2010.

While walking around Washington DC we came across the Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress with some very interesting fountains, aptly named The Court of Neptune.

We did a guided tour of the inside of the Capitol building. This is an outside view from the back side of the building.

Another outside view taken from the legislature side.

A closer view of the Statue of Freedom that sits on top of the Capitol dome.

This replica of the Statue of Freedom is inside the rotunda under the dome.

A plaque honoring the passengers and crew who successfully diverted the flight #93 airliner that was possibly to target the Capitol Building, but instead crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.

The view up inside the Capitol dome.

A closer view of the painting up there.

The painting around the perimeter of the dome is amazing, it really looks as if it was sculpted not painted!

Various statues are around the inside that are part of theNational Statuary Hall depicting various important figures in our nations history.

Rosa Parks.

The spot where John Quincy Adams desk was in the room below the Capitol Rotunda (called the Crypt)when it was used for office space early on.

The white spot shown here designates the center of the Capitol building which is also the exact center of Washington DC. We never knew that! That’s why the Capitol Building does not have a physical address! This is also in the floor of the Crypt below the Rotunda room.

We watched the very solemn ritual of The Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier; very moving!! This is done 24/7 everyday of the year; every hour on the hour in winter and every half hour in the summer.

Inside the Arlington House, where Robert E. Lee lived prior to the Civil War. During the Civil War the grounds of the house were selected as the site for Arlington Cemetery in part to ensure Lee could not return to live there. Since then, the government has designated this house as a memorial to Robert E. Lee.