Washington DC - Day 2

Day 2 - we started out the day going to Arlington National Cemetery.  I thought this was the biggest cemetery in the nation, but it is actually only the 8th biggest military cemetery according to the tour guide, with "only" 430,000 burials.  We decided to take the hop on hop off bus around the huge site and that was really good considering temperatures in DC got to 106 F today.  Standing anywhere in the sun was oppressive - even hotter than Austin, due to the humidity.




We wound our way through the gravesites, seeing the headstones for many famous generals and other famous people, like supreme court justices.  We saw the large site for John F Kennedy and his close family members.  There were memorials for specific groups of people, like Iran Hostage Crisis, Nurses, Challenger, and Chaplains.  The highlight of the tour was to watch the Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown soldier.  This was a solemn ceremony where a lone guard paces precisely in front of the tomb, then an officer and replacement guard appears.  There is a very prescribed manner in which the old guard and new guard and their weapons are inspected and then the new guard reports in the position.  We all agreed it was the highlight of the day.

After leaving the cemetery, we switched hotels to the Hyatt Capitol near the Capitol building.  Because it was so hot, we decided to postpone our walking tour of the monuments to another day.  Instead we headed to the National museum of Art.  On the way we stopped for some Chili Tots and mini burgers at Hamilton's Bar and Grill - it was good and open on Sunday.

We walked a few more blocks to the East building of the National Gallery of Art to see the more modern artists.  Besides seeing Picasso and Matisse (which happened to be codenames for our recent projects at work), we saw a lot of other interesting older pieces.  We also like to laugh at the minimalist art which usually seems ridiculous like Black Plank - a shiny plank leaning up against a wall and something that looked like a pillow case tacked to the wall.

Picasso (left) and Matisse (right) on the same wall

Bad babies - decapitated head and more behind the wall

We took the underground tunnel to the West Building to see the older works from the 15th-19th Century.  The beautiful second floor with expansive rooms and plush decor was like a work of art itself.  We liked a lot of the paintings and spent over an hour wandering through the various rooms. 


Shellie didn't want to see the sculpture garden (too hot) and I wanted to get cleaned up for dinner, so we walked back to the hotel and got ready for the evening.




In the evening we went to dinner at Carmine's a chain Italian restaurant that serves huge family-style portions.  Then we headed to a movie theater to see the new Lion King movie.  Prior to the movie we went to a local bar and the kids and I played table hockey.  The movie was pretty good, I thought.  We headed home for the evening a little after 11pm.