We started the day with a 10:00 Pentagon Tour. The tour takes your through 1.5 miles of the 17 miles of hallways inside the building. They spent some time during the tour talking about 9-11, and we saw the inside 9-11 Pentagon Memorial. It was pretty great just to be in The Pentagon. It is a huge place.
Following the tour, we visited the outdoor 9-11 Pentagon Memorial. I had read ahead of time about the symbolism of this memorial and was able to share that information with the kids. It is really well done memorial and impactful to see. After spending some time here, we took the metro to the Pentagon City stop and had lunch at the mall food court.
After lunch , we took the metro to the Smithsonian stop and visited the Museum of Natural History.
We saw the Hope Diamond and the Hall of Mammals. We browsed a couple more sections before we decided that this wasn’t the place for us. We like American History Museum much better than this museum.
We left the museum and took the metro to the Rosslyn stop to see the Marine Corp (Iwo Jima) Memorial. We made a quick stop at the McDonalds close to the metro for ice cream. We asked a couple of joggers for directions and made the hike to the monument. We liked this monument very much as well. We spent some time taking pictures and resting in the shade.
We headed back to the hotel. We opted again for sandwiches in the room followed by a quick swim in the hotel pool.
We still had to see the memorials around the Tidal Basin. We decided to head out around 7:30 with a plan to see the FDR, Thomas Jefferson and WWII Memorial at night. We took the metro to the Smithsonian station. We first walked around the Tidal Basin seeing the MLK Jr., FDR and Thomas Jefferson Memorials. We really liked the MLK Jr. Memorial and loved the FDR Memorial. There were so many photo opportunities for the kids at the FDR Memorial. They had a great time posing with the statues and by the waterfalls. By the time we left the Jefferson Memorial, it was very dark. The trails were hard to see but the flashlight apps on our iPhones helped us out with that. Ha!
We next went to the WWII Memorial. Such a different experience here at night than during the day. It was very serene and beautiful. We walked around and then just sat here for 15-20 minutes taking it all in.
We made a quick stop by the Korean War Memorial. It was very difficult to make out at night with almost no lights at all. Our last stop was the Lincoln Memorial which was also fantastic to see all lit up. By the time we made it back to the metro, it was close to midnight. We roughly estimated that we had walked 7-8 miles over the course of the day. We all agreed that it was worth it though. I will never forget the feelings of awe, gratitude and pride I felt seeing the memorials at night.
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