Sean's graduation and Arlington National Cemetery

The real reason we were in DC was for Sean's commencement for his Master of Arts in History from American Military University.

The ceremony was held at the Gaylord National Harbor, and it was a very nice ceremony. There were graduates from all over the USA, and even a few foreign countries!

Graduation Video

After graduation, we spent a few hours at Arlington National Cemetery, where we did the tram tour and got to see the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns, and a wreath ceremony. Just as we arrived, it started raining.

After that, we found fellow Texan Audie Murphy's headstone.

And then we found the memorials for the Space Shuttles Challenger and Columbia.

After that, it was totally pouring rain, so we headed back to the hotel on the Metro. 

White House and Monuments

We had an early start today due to 9 AM White House tour tickets. We had to stand in line for about 30 minutes to go through the security checks, but once inside, it moved quickly. We saw most of the East Wing, including: The East Room (which was set up for a military spouse recognition program) 

Including the portrait of George Washington that Dolley Madison saved from the fire of 1812

The Blue Room, which holds the National Christmas Tree

and the China Toom, which was set up by Mrs. Kennedy to display the State chinas.

I loved the portrait of Reagan!

And my mother-in-law loved the portrait of JFK.

Sean and I had to have our picture taken in the White House.

After the White House, we saw several monuments on the National Mall since it was a beautiful day.

Vietnam Veterans Memorial,

Vietnam Nurses' Memorial,

Korean War Memorial,

And the very impressive World War II Memorial.

We caught an Uber over to the Smithsonian National Native American Museum and had a nice lunch at their cafe, and browsed the museum.

Our evening consisted of Sean's graduate reception at the Gaylord National Harbor, then dinner at the Union Street Public House in Old Town Alexandria.

It was a very fun day, and thank goodness the weather held out!

US Army Twilight Tattoo

Today started pretty early. We checked our bags at DFW and went to meet Sean’s mom’s plane at the newly reopened Terminal E satellite. Of course her flight arrived at the furthest gate away! We all walked to the Skylink train and took it to Terminal A where we boarded our flight to DCA. The flight was fairly bumpy but we arrived on time. We collected our bags and took the Metro to our hotel in Alexandria.
We took the Metro to Arlington, where we had dinner at Ireland’s Four Courts pub. I didn’t take any food pics, but we all enjoyed our meals.
Our evening activity tonight was the US Army’s “Twilight Tattoo” at Fort Myer.

We were surprised to be seated in the VIP section, and we really enjoyed the show! Many units performed, especially the Old Guard. Lynn and I especially loved the Fife & Drum Corps.

The Army Drill team was particularly impressive!

After the performance, we took an Uber back to our hotel. 

Tomorrow will be another busy day!

A "bucket list" trip to our nation's capital!

The commencement ceremony for Sean's Master's degree from American Military University will be held in Washington DC. He worked so hard on it for so long that we had to attend! I'd been saving up my American Airlines miles for quite a while with no particular trip in mind, and we still had most of our Holiday Inn points from 2018, so we decided to go for it! Sean's mom, Lynn, had also been asking us to take her to Washington DC for several years (she said it was her "bucket list" trip), so she will be joining us. I haven't been to DC since 1989, and Sean hasn't been since 2004.

Admittedly, I am usually a very careful trip planner, but with my busy work schedule, the model horse show I co-hosted with friends in April, and life in general, I didn't do my normal amount of planning for this trip. We both requested White House tour tickets from our Congressman and Senator back in February (which we have been granted!), and I did reserve Capitol tour tickets a month ago, but most of the planning was done this past weekend. Fortunately, both Sean and I were able to spend most of the day on Sunday before the trip doing planning, and now we have a good itinerary put together. The weather may not be very cooperative, so we are bringing rain ponchos and umbrellas, and we will make the best of it! Our hotel is a Holiday Inn in Alexandria, Virginia right on the Metro line, so we will be using the Metro extensively. No car for us this trip!

Lynn is starting her journey first bright and early at 6:15 AM. She's flying from Del Rio to DFW, then we will meet up with her and we will all fly together from DFW to Washington Reagan. We arrive in the early afternoon, which should give us plenty of time to use the Metro to get to the hotel, get checked in, make a supply run, and then head out for the evening. We are hoping that the weather cooperates so we can attend the US Army's "Twilight Tattoo" program at Joint Base Meyer-Henderson. (They do hold it indoors if the weather is bad, but it's not nearly as good since there won't be any marching or cannon fire!) Keep your fingers crossed for us, and I will make a post tomorrow evening with an update.

A tourist day in New Jersey

I had to attend a training class for work in Newark, NJ, so I decided to come up a day early and be a tourist for the day! I did a little research online, and I decided to do the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island ferry tour. I will definitely say this is the best $20 I've spent on travel in a long time! I boarded the ferry on the New Jersey side (which is much less crowded than the NYC side), and headed over to Ellis Island for the first stop. The view of both sites from the New Jersey ferry is impressive!

The Registry building itself is really pretty, especially when you consider that it was a government building. The entire island fell into disrepair after the facility stopped being used in the 1950s, and it wasn't touched again until the 1980s. By then, major work was needed to restore it. The Registry Building has been restored, but the surrounding hospital and dormitory buildings have not been restored yet.

The Registry Room is very impressive! This is the main hall where the immigrants were inspected and processed for admission. I never knew that only the "steerage" passengers went through Ellis Island; the first-class passengers were inspected on their ships. 

The audio tour (included in the admission) was very informative, but I quickly realized that if I did the entire tour, I would run out of time to see everything. So, I focused only on the Ellis Island immigration portions. Still, there was more than enough to see and experience! The exhibits were very well done. I found several DAR items. These were citizenship handbooks, which the Society still gives to new immigrants today! 

I also found some neat Southern Pacific Railroad items. These were in the area where the exhibit showed how the immigrants bought train tickets to the rest of the USA after they were admitted. My father-in-law worked on the SPRR for many years, so I knew Sean and his family would enjoy these!

After eating a quick lunch, I got back on the ferry to proceed to the Statue of Liberty. The views of New York Harbor and the Statue from the ferry were spectacular! The big building is the One World Trade Center, which replaced the twin towers after 9/11. (I would loved to have been able to go to the 9/11 Museum, but there just wasn't enough time on this trip.)

There were a lot more people on Liberty Island, so I got right in line to go up to the Pedestal. This was also an excellent bargain, as it was only $2 more than the standard package, and it allowed me to go to the observation deck at the base of the statue. There was also access inside the Crown, but since that involved a small, enclosed space and a spiral staircase, I passed on it...

The view of the statue looking up from the pedestal was kind of odd... Inside the pedestal, there was a glass ceiling so you could look up inside the statue at the support structure (and that spiral staircase leading to the crown). My dad would have loved to see that! Again, the Harbor views were impressive! 

Once I got back down to the base, there is a nice museum about the concept, design and construction of the statue. The original torch, which was replaced in the 1980s due to deterioration, is on display inside. A new museum is being built, which will open in 2019.

The plaques with the poem written by Emma Lazarus are also on display in the museum. They were also removed from outdoors due to deterioration.

It was starting to get a little late in the afternoon, so I boarded the ferry to get back to land. I still had several more things I wanted to see!

The ferry docks in New Jersey at what used to be the Central Railroad terminal. People too ferries to NYC, and trains all over New Jersey from here. It's a really pretty building, and it's also very historic. Sadly, it is currently unused, other than to sell ferry tickets.

I would like to ride this train, but it doesn't seem to be running anymore...

A nice lady and I took each others' pictures with New York City in the background.

There's also a 9/11 Memorial at the ferry pier. It's called the Empty Sky, and it's New Jersey's monument. It focuses on the patch of the skyline that was left empty after 9/11. It also has all of the victims' names on it, and a piece of steel from the towers.

There was another 9/11 Memorial in New Jersey that I wanted to see. This one was way off the beaten path! It's called The Teardrop, and it was a gift from the people of Russia. It's in Bayonne, way at the end of an old pier that's now used for cruise ships. I had to use Google Earth to find it! But it was totally worth the effort! 

After all this, I was really hungry for dinner. I had scouted out a few local places on Yelp, and I decided tonight would be Jerry's in Jersey City. It was definitely a neighborhood favorite! I got lucky and found a parking place on the street, and walked over. 

I ordered Chicken Parm, which is one of my favorites. It did not disappoint! I will probably have garlic breath for a week!

 The owner/chef, Jerry, came over to greet me and make sure I enjoyed my meal. He thought it was really neat that I came all the way from Texas, and he gave me a homemade cannoli to try. Oh wow! I didn't take a picture, but I did promise him I would leave a good review on Yelp! 

After all of this, I drove back to my hotel in Newark, which, amazingly, was on the same road! (The highways here are a total mess. DFW traffic is nothing like this!) I totally enjoyed my day, and I am going to get a good night's sleep before my training class tomorrow!

Day 5: Guadalupe Mountains National Park

I was a little concerned when we got ready to leave this morning. It was still very foggy and cold in Carlsbad, NM. Since we had passed the park in total fog-out yesterday, we would have to backtrack almost an hour to get there today. Would it be worth the trip if it was still foggy? We decided to make the gamble and headed out. The further we got away from Carlsbad, and the higher the elevation, the heavier the fog became. Fortunately, almost the minute we crossed back into Texas, the fog lifted away!

By the time we got to the park sign, which we couldn't even see yesterday, it was a perfectly clear day.

Guadalupe Mountains isn't a very large park. The visitors center is pretty small, although it does have a nice exhibit about the flora and fauna of the area. We did the short nature trail hike, which had beautiful views of El Capitan, the highest peak in Texas.

We got back in the truck and drove down to McKittrick Canyon, which I was really looking forward to because it was supposed to have the best fall foliage colors. If you look closely in this photo, you can see the red and gold trees high up in the hills.

Unfortunately, the foliage doesn't start until a mile down the trail. We simply didn't have enough time to do a minimum 2+ mile hike and still make the 4 hour drive to our stopping point for the night. So, sadly, we decided to get back in the truck and start heading home. We did go down the nature trail in that area, which was at least a little bit scenic. 

The drive back took is through the far southeastern corner of New Mexico along US highway 180. There really wasn't much to see along the road. The area has the country's largest potash mine, and a lot of oil and gas wells. We crossed back into Texas, and through the southern panhandle area with lots of cotton fields, wind turbines, and more oil wells. The landscape changed to rolling hills just after we left Lamesa, and we stopped for the night in the small town of Snyder. We will make it back home tomorrow early afternoon...unless we find something fun to do along the way!