Seeking Susie

Up early again, on this, the 5th day of my trip, Tuesday, Aug 6th.  Leslie dropped me back off at the DAR headquarters on her way to work.

Same scenario, I milled around outside until they opened.

I got my pass for the day.

The dot means, I’m a member, and the green means it’s Tuesday.  There were still a few things on my ancestors I wanted to print, and I had promised my friends David and Diane that I would look in their Ancestor files, and print the documentation for them as well.

So I headed back to the computer room and printed, printed, printed.  Then I took a brief lunch break to eat, and then came back and printed, printed, printed.  When I got done, this is what I had printed.  This does not include the prints from the day before.

Wowza, right!?!

That combined with what I printed yesterday, was 35.5 lbs, and $215 worth of copies.

Want to know how I know?

I weighed those suckers, and 25 cents a copy add’s up, y’all!

I’m also glad to report that a lot of that cost was David and Diane’s.  I’m not so sure they were glad though.  OK, they were. They were thrilled when I gave them the copies. You guys know, it’s always exciting to get stuff on your ancestors.

Oh, and I could only check two bags on the way home, each had to weigh less than 50 lbs, and after carrying all this paper around for the rest of the day, let’s just say I was concerned about getting all this home.  I had to borrow a suitcase from Leslie to do it.  Both suitcases combined, weighed 90 lbs when they weighed them at the airport.

Whew!

OK, back to the recap.

Then I bought a few things in the DAR gift shop and waited on Leslie.  She got off work early and picked me up and we drove out to Arlington Cemetery.

This was amazing!

We paid for the shuttle, and just let me tell you, “Thank Goodness!”  I would have never made those hills.  It just goes on and on and on.  Plus, it rained on us.  I had an umbrella though, so that was all good.

If you have visited here and this doesn’t move you, and make you understand or at least see the magnitude of the sacrifice that our soldiers and their families make for us every single day, then I’d be really worried about you.

Seriously.

Some of these have multiple family members in them.  Buried one on top of the other.

Then we headed to the Kennedy Memorial.  I’ve seen this on TV, but it’s a whole other ball game to stand here and see first hand the final resting place of John F. Kennedy, and think about the sacrifice he made on behalf of our country.

The final resting place of John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline B. Kennedy Onassis., with two of their infant children.

Then we saw Robert Kennedy’s final resting place.

Just up at the top of the hill, above Edward Kennedy’s final resting place, is Robert E. Lee’s house.  There was one point when Leslie and I were driving through D.C. and I could see Robert E. Lee’s house way up on top of the hill, all the way across the city.  It looked as if it was looking down on everything.

And boy, was I right.  Here is the view from Robert E. Lee’s front yard.

Amazing!

This is a map of what Arlington Estate looked like back in 1860.

This is what it looks like now.  This is walking up the path toward the front of the house. You can see the garden, which is on the back side of the house.

This is the side of the house.

This is the front of the house.

This is a garden out to the side of the house.

And another one.  I’m not really even sure what this was used for.

This monument is near the Arlington Estate, and it is the Civil War Unknowns Monument. It was placed here in 1866, and is the first monument at Arlington dedicated to unknown solider’s.  This was the move by Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs that prevented Robert E. Lee and his family from inhabiting the house again.  He knew when he ordered the graves to be moved here, that would be the outcome.

The inscription reads:

BENEATH THIS STONE
REPOSE THE BONES OF TWO THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN UNKNOWN SOLDIERS
GATHERED AFTER THE WAR
FROM THE FIELDS OF BULL RUN, AND THE ROUTE TO THE RAPPAHANOCK,
THEIR REMAINS COULD NOT BE IDENTIFIED. BUT THEIR NAMES AND DEATHS ARE
RECORDED IN THE ARCHIVES OF THEIR COUNTRY, AND ITS GRATEFUL CITIZENS
HONOR THEM AS OF THEIR NOBLE ARMY OF MARTYRS. MAY THEY REST IN PEACE.
SEPTEMBER. A. D. 1866

Then we decided to go see the changing of the guards and on our way to do so, we saw the grave of Audie L. Murphy.  Movie star, and most decorated WWII Soldier.  He received 28 medals during the war.

Audie’s final resting place is across from the Arlington Memorial Amphitheater.

This is where we saw the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the Changing of the Guards.

Then after we watched this, we went over to where the Memorials were for the Challenger Space Shuttle, the Space Shuttle Columbia, and the Iran Rescue Mission Monument.

The Challenger Space Shuttle Memorial.

The Iran Rescue Mission Monument.

The Space Shuttle Columbia Memorial.

Then we took our obligatory selfie.

Then, we went back to Leslie’s apartment, had a little supper and then we went to see the movie “White House Down”.

Totally appropriate for me to be in D.C. and watch this movie.  The best part of it was the movie theater that we went to, has recliners.

Yep, recliners baybeeeee!

I’m so surprised I stayed awake throughout the whole movie, because let me tell you, recliners in a movie theater is the way to go!  I was comfy!

Anyway, the movie was good, and we went back to the apartment and crashed.

End of this day.