8/23/15 - Clinton, MD

Jim drove again today.  We went to the 9-11 memorial at the Pentagon.  The memorial has separate benches for each individual who died.  Some of them face toward the Pentagon and some away from the Pentagon depending on whether they were on the plane or in the Pentagon when they died.  They are also arranged in rows by the victims' year of birth.  We made a quick stop at the LBJ Memorial Grove on the Potomac. Then we went to Arlington Cemetery.  We walked a massive amount of steps here.  We stopped by J.F. Kennedy’s grave, Taft’s grave and went to the Arlington House where Robert E. Lee lived.  We watched the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers.  Jim found two of his relatives' graves - 4 Star Admiral Donald Felt, whom you can read about on Wikapedia.   His son’s grave is near him and he was a 2 Star Rear Admiral.  Jim also found the grave of his preacher from Tyler whose son’s name he found on the Vietnam Wall.  I found two graves for kin of the Custis family who are distant cousins to me.  

 Then we drove to the Marine Corps monument of the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima.  We have seen the original clay sculpture which this one was made from in Harlingen, Texas.  One of the flag raisers, Harlon Block, is buried at the base of the Harlingen statue.  Next we drove to Theodore Roosevelt Island on the George Washington Parkway.  We tried to go see the Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts.   When we got there the parking lots were full and cars were parked on the sides of the road.  Police were getting ready to direct traffic -- a concert by the Beach Boys was due to end in 20 minutes.  We left so we wouldn’t be caught in that massive traffic jam.