On Friday, May 4th, Alex's 4th grade class, along with an army of parents, hitched a ride on 3 charter buses and headed for the nation's capital: Washington D.C.After an uneventful 2hr bus ride, we landed smack in the middle of the mall; outside of the Museum of
Natural History. Our primary interest for our limited free time lay elsewhere, though: The Air and Space Museum. After a short walk across the mall, we spent the majority of our time admiring things such as the 1903 Wright Flyer and the more recent SpaceShipOne.When free-time ended, we re-boarded the buses for a guided tour of Arlington Cemetery. After a good deal of walking we viewed areas such as John F. Kennedy's grave and the memorials to both the Challenger and Columbia shuttle disasters. We were also able to view the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns. All of this was very interesting and very sobering at the same time.
From there, we boarded the buses again and headed back into D.C. for the WWII Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial, and the Korean War Memorial. Each of these impacted the children as it did the parents and raised much good discussion.
