Washington DC, Baby! (Day One)

A few months ago Joel and I decided that we wanted to go on a big trip for our anniversary this year. After a lot of discussion and research, we decided to go to Washington DC! I've decided that it will be easier to post this day by day, because if I tried to do one post for the whole trip it would be crazy long.

Our adventure started on our actual anniversary, a Sunday, March 29th. Brenda was the biggest sweetheart and watched our kids for us the whole time we were gone, so really she is the reason this trip was able to happen! Thank you, Brenda!  We drove the kids up to Riverton where we met Brenda, and she took the kids up to Cowley for a few days. They came back to Green River later that week. 

Anyway, after saying goodbye to the kids (which I'll admit was a little hard for me; especially saying goodbye to Audrey. I was worried she would miss us a lot and wouldn't really understand that we were coming back. Spoiler alert: she was fine while we were gone, and though she did miss us, she wasn't traumatized at all, thank goodness.) So after saying goodbye to the kids we went back to Green River, finished packing, and headed to the airport in SLC. We took a red-eye, so it left in the middle of the night.

Our flight was fine, we had a layover at JFK in New York, where I was able to take a quick nap. The flight from there to DC was very quick, and before we knew it we were at our hotel, checking in. 

On our first day we went to Arlington Cemetery, which was very impressive. We've all seen pictures, but I just never realized how many people are buried there. The headstones just keep going and going in all directions. You go over a hill or around a corner, and there's even more headstones than you thought possible. 

We stopped at the tomb of the unknown soldier for about an hour. We watched the changing of the guard, which was impressively synchronized and precise. Although, it is mildly terrifying when the soldier who is guarding the tomb steps out of his normal rhythm and off his little path to loudly request that there be silence and respect at the tomb at all times. And then he stares down the people who were talking. I was very happy it wasn't me and Joel! 

After Arlington we walked across the Potomac to the Lincoln Memorial, to commence what we liked to call the "Memorial Mosey". It was a nice day, so there were huge crowds of people everywhere. But it was lovely to be out, seeing the sites, stretching our legs, and enjoying ourselves. We also saw the Vietnam War Memorial, the World War II Memorial, and we walked up to the Washington Monument. I have a strange fascination with the Washington Monument. I took about a million pictures of it from just about everywhere we went. I think it's because I like that you can see it from so many different places, and you immediately have a sense of where you are in the city. 

We kept it an early night on Monday since we'd had almost no sleep the night before.  We stayed in a hotel in Crystal City, which is in Arlington, VA. It's not far from DC, and our hotel was really close to a Metro stop, which is how we got around the entire time we were there. There's also a huge thing called Crystal City shops which is a big group of mostly underground shops and restaurants. Which was convenient for meals, when we were tired and wanted to just eat dinner and go to bed, like we did on Monday night. :)

 Joel snapped this pic of me sleeping between flights. Believe it or not, that was the second time in six months that I've slept on that hard blue carpet at JFK.

We are waiting for our shuttle from the airport to our hotel. We were excited to be there, and totally sleep deprived.

No joke, I think this is the best burger I've ever had. From Good Stuff Eatery, we went there twice because the burgers were so good. (The toasted marshmallow shake wasn't bad, either)

This was our first ride on the subway. I don't know why Joel is frowning. Probably because he was already tired of me taking pictures. :)

 The grave of JFK, his wife, and two of their children.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

On the bridge over the river, with the Washington Monument in the background.

 From the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

I thought this looked neat. It's the Washington Monument reflected in the Vietnam War Memorial.

 This is at the WWII Memorial. We didn't get a great picture of the whole thing, with the fountains and everything. I think we got a better one later in the week.

 It's even taller than it looks in pictures, I think.

My hand, on the actual monument.