DAY 5: WA Monument, Printing/Engraving & Arlington Cemetery

DAY 5:

Today I went all the way up the Washington Monument and I could see everything around. I took some picutres of the White House and the Lincoln Memorial. The monument is the highest masonry building in the world and the highest building in Washington, DC. This is me outside and I wasn't feeling very good when I was up there - it was crowded, hot and loud, and the windows were really small.

This is Mom and me waiting by the elevator to go up the monument.

This is me looking out the really small window. There were two windows on each side (that's 8 windows).

Here is the only picture of the White House that I took. This is the back of it. We couldn't get an inside tour because we needed to get reservations 6 months before we got there.

Here is another picture of the Lincoln Memorial, but this one is from the top of the Washington Monument.

I also went to the Arlington National Cemetery. We took a tour bus up to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier because if we walked we were going to be late. It was really cool. There was a wreath laying ceremony too that an elementary school presented for a field trip and a soldier played his horn.

Some of the tomb stones were really big, but all of the newer ones have to be like these small ones. They are government issued to save space.

Here is the Tomb of the Unknown soldier. It holds unknown soldiers from WWI, WWII & the Korean War. It did hold one from the Viet Nam war but they used DNA to find out who he was, so they took him out. Soldiers guard the tomb all the time, 24 hours a day. Each duty is 1 hour until the "changing of the guards". They clean the rifle, hand it off, then he marches 21 steps, stops, then he turns around and waits, then turns around again and marches back another 21 steps. Oh, and he switches hands, so that the rifle is always on the shoulder that is the farthest away from the tomb. The soldiers who have this job, have it for 2 years and they live in barracks underneath where the tomb is. They also can't drink alcohol or swear. When they are done with their duty they get a wreath pin to wear and not very many people have one, I think it's like 400.

This is the Kennedy area of the cemetery. We got there at 5:03 and the guard wouldn't let us go up! I really wanted to see JFK's memorial stone and the flame that is there all the time. Underneath this picture is a picture of where Robert Kennedy was buried after he was assassinated. At least we got to see this.

We started walking back to the metro, but got lost because we followed a group of high schoolers back to the visitor's center, but they didn't know where they were going. Finally, Mom looked at her map and we finally got out of there.

I went to the Bureau of Prining and Engraving. I got to see where paper money was printed and how they print it. Coins are made in Colorado and I think Pennsylvania. It was a pretty short tour but I liked it. The money is printed on big sheets of paper on one side, then it has to sit for 72 hours before they print the other side. Then it is cut in half (the big sheet) and then more markings are put on it. I got to see a whole clear box of $10 bills that equalled $1,000,000 but we couldn't take a picture. Then it gets packed and sent to the Federal Reserve - it doesn't turn into real money until they get it and put the final marks on it.

This is the very first kind of money printing machine. The new ones cost over $4 million dollars each and they are a lot bigger than this one.



I got to go on a carousel that's out in front of the Smithsonian Institute on the Mall. Tomorrow, we are sleeping in and then leaving. We might get to do one more thing but I'm not sure. We don't get home until almost 2 in the morning. I can't wait to see my dad and my friends. I'd like to say hellow to my dad, Teryk, Josh & Jacob, Aaron, Leah, Cameron, Rowan, Jace, Tia & Cade, Jessica, Abigail, Aunti Lisa, Uncle Billy, Auntie Shelley, Uncle Clint and Nana and Papa. I want to have a party when I come home but I don't know if my mom will let me. The End.