Science Olympiad Tours DC: Day 3

Today our group donned our sporty red t-shirts which have a woordle in the shape of Honest Abe’s head on the front. For some reason that reminded me of red ants as we are always in a group moving together from one place to another. Therefore the song “The ants go marching one by one, hoorah, hoorah!” kept playing in my head throughout the course of the day.

Do you know the saying “pictures say a thousand words”? Well, today I’m going to let the pictures I snapped throughout the day do the talking with the exception of a few captions throughout.

Our first stop was a visit to the 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to view the White House.

Next up, we trekked through the National Botanical Gardens. 

 

After that we headed to the National Archives where we got to see some of the most important documents in our nation’s history. Photography is prohibited inside of the National Archives so as to preserve the items such as the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights which are on display. However, I was able to snap this quick picture of our students on the steps of the National Archives. 

 

Then we were off to the Capitol for a quick lunch before our tour. Did you know that when you enter the Capitol and go through security you cannot have any water (or other beverage) and no food with you? In addition, other items such as Axe body spray are not allowed and will be confiscated. (For the second year in a row one of our boys had to surrender his Axe body spray when going through security.)

A couple of the boys were enjoying their lunch in the Capitol Cafeteria.

Here we are waiting in line to begin our Capitol tour.

The first part of the Capitol tour is a movie that explains what occurs on Capitol Hill. We learned about the two houses--the Senate and House of Representatives--and how our elected officials work to make laws in their respective houses.

Every state has two statues located somewhere in the Capitol. Doctor Crawford Long, the inventor of ether, is one of Georgia's statues.

Below this star is a tomb that was intended to house George Washington. However, in Washington's will he specified that he wanted to be buried in Vermont where he lived. The tomb continues to lie empty to this day.

The weather on Thursday foiled our plans to visit the memorials so we moved our memorial visit to today. First up was the World War II Memorial.  

Next up was the Lincoln Memorial. To get there we walked along the reflecting pool.

Here are students pausing to read Lincoln's Gettysburg Address which is engraved in one of the walls of the Lincoln Memorial.

The students grabbed a quick photo op in front of Honest Abe.

The students are standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial facing the reflecting pool. The Washington Monument and Capitol are in the distance. They are standing in the exact spot that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr stood when he gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.

A quick picture of students' feet surrounding the engraving on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial that marks the spot where Dr. King gave his speech.

The last memorial we visited was the Vietnam Memorial. Here is the view we had as we walked towards the Vietnam Memorial. You can see a stage that is still set up from a ceremony on Memorial Day where all the names of the soldiers who were lost or missing in action during the Vietnam War. 

This is the wall which contains the engraved names of all those who either perished or were missing in action during the Vietnam War.

One of our students lost his grandfather during the Vietnam War. Here we paused to check out the book which details what panel and line each soldiers name is on.

We stopped to do a rubbing of Kaleb's grandfather's name on the wall.

Our final stop of the day was to find a shady spot on the National Mall to relax and enjoy dinner. We ordered pizza from We The Pizza and had it delivered to us on the National Mall. Now, you might ask yourself why we ordered pizza in a mall. In this case, the National Mall is not what we commonly refer to as a mall with stores in it; rather, the National Mall is a lawn that ranges from Capitol Hill to the Lincoln Memorial.

While we waited for pizza to arrive we wrote postcards to send to the many people who donated so that this trip could become a reality for our kids.

After a few postcards were written students cut loose with a game of tag.

Everyone was ready to inhale the pizza when it arrived!

Back at the Embassy Suites hotel, students played a few rounds of Headbandz before showering and getting ready for bed.

Tomorrow is our last day in DC. We have one final destination before we head to the airport. Check in tomorrow night to see what our final destination was.