April, 2009: Virginia and I each have birthdays 1 week apart at this time of year. This year we decided to celebrate in our nation's capitol. The Smithsonian Institute has for years been the largest group of exhibit halls in the country.
Most all of these exhibits are near the United States Capitol building, including the Botanical Gardens, George Washington Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, and the Museum of American History (highlights: the hat that Lincoln wore to the Ford Theater where he was assassinated, and the original American flag that had flown during the War of 1812 and The National Anthem was written) - Museum of Natural History, the Air and Space Museum (highlights: the "The Spirit of St. Louis plane flown by Lindburg, and the capsule that was used to deliver and return the spacemen to the moon and back), The Newseum is fairly new with all the information about the gathering and dissemination of world-wide news, and is very interesting.
Since World War II there have been numerous new memorials, including the World War II memorial, the Viet Nam memorial, the Korean memorial, and more recently there is a magnificent park area dedicated to Franklin D. Roosevelt. We visited one or two of these areas each day for five days. Probably the two most impressive for us was the F. D. R. and WW II areas.
We sincerely believe the United States could have lost that war had it not been for the leadership of Roosevelt and Winston Churchill of England. We laughed and cried and thoroughly enjoyed all the visits we were able to make.
Another highlight of the trip was when our close friends, formerly from Baton Rouge - (Rick, Virginia, and their son Spencer Andrews), visited with us. They now live in Delaware where Rick is Dean of the Business School at the University of Delaware.
The best part of any vacation is to return home and enjoy the great-grandchildren while they swing in the backyard!
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