Washington D.C. Day 4

This was another early morning.  This was also our last day in D.C. so we knew that whatever we were wanting to see, we had to squeeze it in today.  We got ready and headed to the Metro.  As we were sitting there waiting on the subway to arrive, Trent tells me Happy Mother's Day.  I really didn't know how to take that.  I smiled though as I realize I am mommy to one big ol' furry baby at home.  I love my Ol' Bully Baby.  The subway arrived and we jumped on headed for our first destination of the day.  The Law Enforcement Memorial.  Let me back up a little and say that when we talked to Big Dqqky on the phone for the first time after we booked our trip, he informed us that Police Week was starting on the Saturday we were there and ending I think it was on Wednesday.  We were sad we didn't know this before hand so that we could have actually planned our trip around Police Week because the main part of the events were starting on Monday which unfortunately was the day we were heading home.  Anyways, it ended up being a great day to go to the memorial because we got to meet some more pretty important people to history that just happened recently.  You will see that in a minute.  Below are some pictures from the memorial.

Lined all along the walls of this place is names engraved of fallen officers
who died on the job.  There is almost 20,000 names engraved of fallen officers.

Since this just happened, Officer Collier's name was not yet engraved in the
wall but they said it would definitely be there by next year.  This is the
MIT Officer that was killed while trying to capture the Boston Bombing
suspects

An officer that was killed during the 9/11 related events

During Police Week, they put pictures on the wall of officers that have died.
The officers that have pictures are ones that have not yet made it to the wall
or are ones who have died of natural causes.

Trentie Loved this scripture in the wall.

This is the scripture that Trent loved in case you can't read it in
the zoomed out picture above

 

At the Back of this wall it says National Law Enforcement Memorial.
On the front part it says, This memorial is dedicated to all Law Enforcement
Officers in the United States of America.  Inscribed on these walls are the
names of those men and women who died in the line of duty.

 While we were there, I saw this picture that I loved.  It was a fallen officers picture with a poem on top of it.  I LOVED it.  I asked a woman standing there if she knew how we could get one made and I was shocked at her response which brought me to tears.  She responded with it was her husband and he passed away just 8 months ago.  She knew the girl who wrote the poem and she was only 13 when she wrote it.  My heart just broke for this poor woman.

I have made this picture x-large in hopes that people can read the poem.  The part that is
bright reads "Protecting us at school and while we are warm in our beds.
With their fancy cars, sirens, and flashing lights, blue and red."

As we were walking around the memorial, Trent looked over and said, "oh man, I love those guys shirts".  I look over and there are guys wearing Boston Jerseys which had a patch on the arm, name and number on the back.  We had wondered if they work in Boston and if they were a part of the Boston Bombings.  Once they got close enough to us, I asked one of the guys if they were from Boston and he said yes.  I then asked if they were officers and did they work the Boston Bombings and he said yes.  It was really neat to meet some guys so important to history. The back of their shirt had their last name on them and the year they started law enforcement.

 

The Boston guys actually worked at the Cambridge Police Department
and gave Trent some of their patches.

Me and Trent were so sad that we were in such a hurry for the day.  This was seriously somewhere we could have stayed all day!  We ended up staying here almost 2 hours and that was not in the plans at all since we were in such a hurry.  We made our way to the Law Enforcement Memorial Visitor's shop and bought a couple of things and then made our way to our next touring destination.

 

We headed towards the Ford's Theatre and home where Lincoln died area.  At this point, it was already about 11:45 and we needed to be heading towards Nationals Park for the game by 12 so the plans were to just take the time to look at the buildings for now and leave the game and head back to this area to actually tour the buildings.

Ford's Theatre where Lincoln was shot



The House where Lincoln died

We moved from Ford's Theatre and the House where Lincoln died to a little souvenir shop and then to the FBI Building. 

Not far from the FBI Building was the National Archives.

We also passed by the United States Navy Memorial.

 

By the time we just looked at all these places, it was a little past 12 so time to make our way to the field as we were supposed to meet Billy at Nationals Park at 1.  We got there about 15 minutes early so stopped right outside the gates to take a picture together.

We then called Billy to let him know we were waiting outside the gates.  Few minutes later he walked up to us, gave us our tickets, we went through the gates and then he said to follow him.  He then proceeds to tell us that he has reserved us a free lunch and walked us to where we were going.  He took us to none other than the........

 This not only meant that we were sitting behind home plate but we got free food and drinks all we wanted throughout the whole game.  Not just any free food though.  Before the game we were eating sirloin, tenderloin, mashed potatoes, pasta salad, broccoli and rice casserole, etc.  And what would a ball park be without a good ol' hot dog.  We were truly living the high life.  We were both thinking, sure we didn't mind to get stuck in an elevator full of a bunch of grouches, burning up for 25 minutes to get free tickets behind home plate and all the free food and drinks we could have possibly wanted! Below is a picture of our seats

Since this was our last day and we really needed to see what we wanted to see today, we left the game at the end of the 6th inning so that we could go back to the Ford's Theatre area and actually tour the inside of the building before some of those sites closed.

Inside Ford's Theatre

The President's Balcony where Lincoln was shot

A more direct view where you can see inside better of the Presidents Balcony
where Lincoln got shot.

Switchblade Knife - carried by John Wilkes Booth during his escape

Colt revolvers and cases - carried by John Wilkes Booth
during his escape.  They were with him when he was
caught and killed.

The gun that was used to kill Lincoln

The outfit Lincoln was wearing when he was shot.

A pillow that was used to prop up Lincoln's head.  You can see the Blood
stains on the pillow.

The door that John Wilkes Booth went through to kill
Lincoln.  In this picture, you can see the peep hole
that Booth was looking through spying before he entered
the balcony to kill Lincoln

After seeing Ford's Theatre and where Lincoln was shot, we went across the street to the Home where Lincoln died.

The sign reads "Between visits to her husband's bedside, Mary Lincoln
waited in this parlor with her son Robert and friends of the Lincoln
family"

This sign reads "In this bedroom, Secretary of War Stanton held several
cabinet meetings, interviewed witnesses, and ordered the pursuit of the
assassins. 

The room which Lincoln died in.

By the time we left the House where Lincoln died, the National Archives was closed.  We were bummed because we really wanted to see it but again, hopefully we can see that when we return one day.  Since the Archives was closed, we made our way to the Old Post Office Tower.  In the Old Post Office Tower, you can go up in the top of it and see D.C.  It was hard to get too many good pictures because there was bars on the windows which made it hard.

Washington Monument

 

 

Lincoln Memorial from the Old Post Office Tower

WWII Memorial from the Old Post Office Tower

White House and Department of Treasury from the Old Post Office Tower

Smithsonian Castle from the Old Post Office Tower

Capitol from the Old Post Office Tower

FBI Building from the Old Post Office Tower

Capitol from the Old Post Office Tower

After this, there was nothing else that we could do that would have been open so we headed back to the motel to relax for a bit before going back out for supper.  We sat in the motel room for a bit trying to decide whether to do a night tour of the Monuments and Memorials or not.  It would have been just a little under $80 for the two of us to do the night time trolley tour.  We really wanted to do it but decided not to.  This will be something else that we will do when we return again.  We spent half of the night trying to decide what to eat.  It was so hard around D.C. for us to decide what to eat because we normally stay so busy on vacation, we really don't take the time to eat fancy.  We finally at about 8:30pm found a 5 Guys Burgers that was supposed to be about 0.3 miles from the motel but we wasn't sure exactly where it was.  We knew the vicinity that it was in but not exact so we set out walking.  We got to the area in which we wasn't sure whether to turn right or left.  We came across a homeless person that could obviously tell we didn't know where to go and he asked what we were looking for.  We told him and he told us where to go.  He then told us, "If you don't know where something is, just ask a bum.  We know where things are better than the locals do"  We thought that was pretty funny but he was exactly right in where to go.  We ate and then went back to the motel.  Trent packed up some of his stuff while I went ahead and laid down.  We were bummed to be leaving D.C. the next morning.  Vacation came and went entirely too quickly.