Washington DC Trip- Day 4- White House, Memorials, Tidal Basin
Today was “Memorial Day”. 😉 We saw the White House, Washington Monument, WWII Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Korean War Veterans Memorial, MLK Jr. Memorial, & Cherry Blossoms around the Tidal Basin. 🍒 We also visited the FDR Memorial, Thomas Jefferson Memorial & the Vietnam Veterans Memorial! 
But first…..we moved hotels. The Georgetown Westin was paid for by Jared’s work. It was a nice place, but a little rich for us and not enough beds, so that morning we moved over to They Hyatt Place.
We had a ton more room and it was super nice!! On top of that…it was just a couple of blocks from the White House! 🙂
So we stopped by and took some pics.
The Donald wasn’t out today. 😛
The Treasury Department.
We stopped by the White House Visitors Center. I think our family and maybe 10 other people were in there. Not many visitors. 😛 It was a neat place to walk through. They had some cool items on display.
The first Memorial was the Washington Memorial. It is under construction right now. They are refurbishing the elevator so we couldn’t get too close to it or go up inside of it. Built to honor George Washington, the United States’ first president, the 555-foot marble obelisk towers over Washington, D.C. It’s crazy tall you can pretty much see it no matter where you are in DC.
The monument to America’s first president still holds the title of world’s tallest stone structure and obelisk. It was completed in 1884.
The WWII Memorial. The World War II Memorial honors the 16 million who served in the armed forces of the U.S., the more than 400,000 who died, and all who supported the war effort from home. Symbolic of the defining event of the 20th Century, the memorial is a monument to the spirit, sacrifice, and commitment of the American people. The Second World War is the only 20th Century event commemorated on the National Mall’s central axis. Consisting of 56 pillars and a pair of small triumphal arches surrounding a square and fountain, it sits on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on the former site of the Rainbow Pool at the eastern end of the Reflecting Pool, between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument.The memorial opened to the public on April 29, 2004.
Jared and I both had grandfathers that fought in WWII. Jared’s blood grandfather J.D. Holzheauser
was killed his jeep roller over an embankment just days AFTER the ward ended there in Germany. It was July 11, 1945. His best friend Edward J. Kitch came home from the war and ended up marrying his wife, who is Jared’s grandmother, Billie.
My step-grandfather Gene Bernal and my grandfather Robert K. Morrison also fought in the war and made it home.
We haven’t had anyone in our immediate families serve in the other wars until our nephew Joe Wallace joined the Marines and has fought in Afganistan and other places he’s not able to disclose.
Looking towards the Lincoln Memorial from the WWII Memorial.
Panoramic from the Lincoln Memorial.
The Lincoln Memorial.
Jared being silly. He wanted to take this and send it to a friend who does planking at random places he vacations.
They have a neat and very small museum under the monument. We probably would have missed it if we didn’t have to use the elevator for the scooter. I’m so glad we didn’t miss it!
The memorial plans originally specified a 12-foot bronze statue, but it proved out of scale for the huge building. The finished statue is 19 feet tall, carved of 28 blocks of white Georgia marble. The carving is so well done that you can’t hardly see the seams! Dedicated in 1922.
The Korean War Veterans Memorial.
We all thought this one was done really well! It’s so cool how it looks like they are actually walking through terrain in the war.
The memorial commemorates the sacrifices of the 5.8 million Americans who served in the U.S. armed services during the three-year period of the Korean War. The War was one of the most hard fought in our history. During its relatively short duration from June 25, 1950 to July 27, 1953, 36,574 Americans died in hostile actions in the Korean War theater. Of these, 8,200 are listed as missing in action or lost or buried at sea. In addition, 103,284 were wounded during the conflict. The Memorial consists of four parts. The statues, the mural wall, the pool of remembrance and the United Nations Wall.
There is a wall with images etched into it paying tribute to the different service men and women who served. It was extremely hard to photograph but hopefully you can see it.
This isn’t a picture of trash cans. Alayna was just obsessed with squirrels. 😛
Next we headed over to the Martin Luther King Memorial.
The inspiration for the memorial design is a line from King’s “I Have A Dream” speech: “Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.” The memorial opened to the public on August 22, 2011, after more than two decades of planning, fund-raising, and construction.
This Memorial is at the Tidal Basin which is a partially man-made reservoir between the Potomac River and the Washington Channel in Washington, D.C. The basin covers an area of about 107 acres and is 10 feet deep.
At the Tidal Basin they hold The National Cherry Blossom Festival. It is a spring celebration in Washington, D.C., commemorating the March 27, 1912, gift of Japanese cherry trees from Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo City to the city of Washington, D.C. Mayor Ozaki donated the trees to enhance the growing friendship between the United States and Japan and also celebrate the continued close relationship between the two nations.
Notice the year…1912. We would go to war with Japan in 1939.
We were so lucky to be visiting during the peak of the blossoms! They were stunning. These pictures don’t really do them any justice. But that’s not going to stop me from posting a ton of them! LOL!
Next up was the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial. Dedicated on May 2, 1997. The monument, spreads over 7.5 acres, traces 12 years of the history of the United States through a sequence of four outdoor rooms, one for each of FDR’s terms of office. Sculptures inspired by photographs depict the 32nd president alongside his dog Fala. Other sculptures depict scenes from the Great Depression, such as listening to a fireside chat on the radio and waiting in a bread line, a bronze sculpture by George Segal. A bronze statue of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt standing before the United Nations emblem honors her dedication to the UN. It is the only presidential memorial to depict a First Lady.
Walker really enjoyed this memorial. He took most of these pictures. 🙂
Thomas Jefferson Memorial. Thomas Jefferson was one of the most important of the American Founding Fathers as the main drafter and writer of the Declaration of Independence, member of the Continental Congress, governor of the newly independent Commonwealth of Virginia, American minister to King Louis XVI, and the Kingdom of France, first U.S. Secretary of State under the first President George Washington, the second Vice President of the United States under second President John Adams, and also the third President (1801–1809), as well as being the founder of the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, Virginia.
Construction of the building began in 1939 and was completed in 1943. The bronze statue of Jefferson was added in 1947.
Walker also like this one a lot too.
That completed our loop around the Tidal Basin.
We missed the Vietnam Memorial so we headed back towards the National Mall to check it out.
On our way back we saw this police woman on horseback. We just don’t see that much here in AZ. Alayna loves animals and tried so hard to catch up to her and get a picture but they were just too fast! She got some nice pics of their rear ends though! Haha!
We kept seeing these golden looking statues coming in and out of DC. Jared went the other way around the Lincoln Memorial to get a pic (while we were chasing down horses on the other side 😛 ) but it didn’t turn out so well. They are called The Arts of War and The Arts of Peace. They are bronze, fire-gilded statues.
Thankfully you can find most things on Google. 😛
“Arts of War”
“Arts of Peace”
Resting our feet from all the walking. So much walking! 😛
We finally made it to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a 2-acre U.S. national memorial in Washington D.C. It honors service members of the U.S. armed forces who fought in the Vietnam War, service members who died in service in Vietnam/South East Asia, and those service members who were unaccounted for (missing in action, MIA) during the war.
The memorial currently consists of three separate parts: the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, completed first and the best-known part of the memorial; the Three Servicemen Memorial, and the Vietnam Women’s Memorial. The main part of the memorial was completed in 1982.
A friend of mine from High School saw on Facebook that we were visiting DC. She asked me to send her a picture of her Uncle who passed away in the war. His name is Michael J. Reinhold. After I sent it to her she said, “Her heart is very tender.” I’m glad I was able to do that for her. <3
We were pretty exhausted from the miles and miles of walking, freezing temps, and the icy wind all day. We went back to the hotel a little early and rested up. We covered a lot in one day!
Then our appetites started to kick in and we decided to go grab some dinner. Jared just Googled a random restaurant that wasn’t too far to walk to and we headed out.
Spotted the Capitol on the way. Still don’t know why we never made it all the way over there. LOL!
The place we went to was called Old Ebbitt Grill. We had no idea of the treasure we were walking into!
The Old Ebbitt Grill is Washington’s first and oldest saloon. It was founded in 1856 when, according to legend, innkeeper William E. Ebbitt bought a boarding house. As a boarding house, the Ebbitt guest list read like a Who’s Who of American History. President McKinley is said to have lived there during his tenure in Congress, and Presidents Ulysses S. Grant, Andrew Johnson, Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt and Warren Harding supposedly refreshed themselves at its stand-around bar.
The food was excellent and the service was meticulous! Only 2 pics of what we ordered though. LOL! But trust me it was gooood!! I tried to recreate the cheese board we got at Mt. Vernon by ordering another one here…..
Eli took this pic. 😛
It was good but it wasn’t nearly as pretty or awesome as the one we had a few days ago. Oh well…LOL!
Walker liked his fish and chips! 😛
I was so done being cold that on the way over to the restaurant there was a little street vendor cart packing up for the day. I spotted scarves and hats. Thankfully they sold it to me even though they were going home. The wind had been blowing in my left ear for too long and was hurting so bad. I was worried it would get an ear infection. But the vendor cart people saved the day!!! I was finally warm and happy! It was a game changer for the rest of the trip!
We walked home, showered, and conked out quick!
