Anniversary Trip - Day 6

Our last day of vacation started off interestingly enough; apparently there was a 3.6 magnitude earthquake in Maryland around 5 a.m. that was felt in D.C. and Alexandria (where we are). Neither Wesley nor I felt anything. In fact, Thursday night I slept the BEST I have in MONTHS. I only got up once during the night and was practically sleep walking to the bathroom and back. I'm sooo thankful for having such a good, restful night. I hope it keeps up!

Friday morning started off with a trip to Ford's Theater.

The whole experience was very interesting and they did a really good job of displaying and sharing information there. The theater is actually a museum and a functioning theater that has shows all year long!

The pistol John Wilkes Booth used to kill Abraham Lincoln.

One of the pillows used to support Lincoln's head after he'd been shot.

Note all the blood stains.

This is the box (and how it looked that night) the Lincolns were seated in that night. President Lincoln was seated on the far right.

After lunch we planned to head to the National Cathedral. But, we got to talking and decided that we could pass on it. We've both been before, and we haven't really had any "relaxing and chill" time on this vacation. We'd had such a great week, but it was slam full. So, we went back to the room. I took a nap and Wesley just laid around and watched television.

Thursday night Wesley posted something on Facebook about us being in D.C. A teacher friend of mine made a comment about her brother being up here (I totally forgot he was!) and could give us a private tour around his office: THE PENTAGON. Thanks for making things work out for us, Jeanne! This was probably our favorite thing from the week! I can't even describe how awesome it was.

Jeanne's brother, John, actually runs communications for Robert Gates, the United States Secretary of Defense! Like when the President (or "his people" usually) call and want to speak to the Sec. of Defense, or vice versa, or someone needs to speak with some general in Afghanistan or Iraq or something, John connects those calls. Although he did say that he's talked directly to Obama, George H.W., and George W. Bush, and Hillary Clinton several times on the phone.

The tour was pretty sweet. Of course, no cameras. A few of the rooms we went in you couldn't even bring anything electronic. We had to leave cell phones in the hallway. We saw a video conferencing room that Robert Gates, the President, and other generals, use to talk to people in the war. We saw THE PHONE that had basically every top politician on speed dial (Obama, Biden, Clinton, Gates, four and five star generals, etc.).

We had already been to the 9/11 Memorial on the outside, but we went to the exact spot the plane went down on the inside. There now is a memorial, complete with biographies of each person who lost their life there on that day, and a chapel. It was very sobering.

We stood outside of offices like Robert Gates, Secretary of the Army, the U.S. Surgeon General, etc. It was so crazy! Parts of the Pentagon were decorated very ornately and had a lot of displays showing history, and other parts looked like any other office building in America.

In the center courtyard of the Pentagon (where you can actually see all 5 sides) is a garden, some benches, and a building that has a cafeteria inside. John told us that after the Cold War, the US learned that the Soviets had 25 or so missiles pointed at this building. They could see on satellite that people were hurriedly going in and out of this thing all day long. They were convinced this was the hub of US Intelligence. Turns out, all those people were just hungry! : )

These were the only two pictures we got from our time there. And, I'm not even sure we were supposed to take them. Excuse my buggy windshield, but I took this to show how close we were to the front of the Pentagon. We were literally like four feet away from the steps to the Pentagon. John got us access to park in the Five Star Generals parking lot (which this pregnant girl really appreciates)!

The sign reads, "Department of Defense" and the windows right above it belong to the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates.

After that we headed over to the Mall one last time, just to see everything all lit up.

We got up earllllly this morning and planned to go as far as I could make it. We stopped probably 7x in 12 hours, but we finally made it. Had home not been our destination, I would have wanted to call it quits for the day, but we were so ready to be home. I think Lishak is glad to have us too! : )