Washington, DC Trip, Part 2

Sunday, October 25, I began my courses at 7 am! There were about 800 students there, but they divided us up into schools (Education, Business, IT, Health Professions), then by specialization area within each school (adult ed, instructional design, etc.), and then tracks (how many colloquia we had attended). Here is my cohort group: PhD in Education, Instructional Design for Online Learning, Track 1. We all had all of our classes together, and got to be great friends. We have already figured out which courses we have together next quarter, and are going to try to plan our Track 2 colloquium together.I learned of a colloquium tradition – that students are given a pin that represents their track. They passed out the Track 1 pins to us. Guess what it said? “I CAN DO THIS!” Isn’t that funny? Apparently I’m not the only one who feels that way!I had given Ryan & Rara & Papa some ideas for activities that would be appropriate for Sunday. Since we didn’t spend any time in Arlington Cemetery at all on Saturday (due to the rain and the time), they took the metro directly there, and did the Tourmobile tour of just Arlington. For those who haven’t been there, it is huge, so having some form of transportation around to see everything is a great idea.They saw the Kennedy graves and Eternal Flame…And were fortunate enough to see the changing of the guard at The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier…When they finished at Arlington, they went to the Holocaust Museum. They all reported how touching it was. I had a similar experience when I went.

On Monday, October 26, I again had courses beginning at 7 am. Ryan & Rara & Papa, now metro pros, took the metro to the Smithsonian stop and went to The Air & Space Museum. Ryan drove a flight simulator with Papa as a passenger, and apparently was a pretty crazy driver. I may delay a driver’s license! They had a lot of fun, and Ryan reported that this was his favorite of the Smithsonian museums. Monday night, I was able to go out to dinner with my friend, Jason. He lives in Alexandria, just a few minutes from our hotel. We enjoyed dinner at a Caribbean restaurant, and then had a great time walking around the streets of historic Alexandria. It was a fun evening, and was a nice break from my intense coursework.On Tuesday, October 27, the fam went to the Natural History Museum & American History Museum. After the movie “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian,” Ryan has been excited to go to the Natural History museum. He wasn’t disappointed.Ryan’s school class has been talking about gems and other rocks. His teacher encouraged him to find the Hope Diamond at the Natural History Museum and take a picture of it to share with the class. He was happy to follow through with that assignment.He was also fascinated with the butterfly exhibit, particularly the one that landed on his head!On Wednesday, October 28, I only had classes until 11:00 am. I checked out of the colloquium, and then we checked out of our hotel. Rara’s friend, La Rene, had come to the hotel that morning and picked up our luggage to take to her house. When I was finished with my classes, we took the metro back into DC. We had tried to schedule a tour of the Pentagon, but hadn’t submitted our request soon enough for security clearance. So we just quickly hopped off the metro at the Pentagon stop and walked around for a few minutes. We were able to see the plaque that was dedicated to those who died at the Pentagon on September 11.I WAS able to schedule a tour of the Capitol with Senator Bennett’s office, and that was scheduled for Wednesday at 2:30. We took the metro to the Capitol South stop, and had a quick lunch at the Cannon Office Building (House of Representatives) cafeteria. We walked by the Library of Congress and Supreme Court, and then met at Senator Bennett’s office in the Dirksen Office Building (Senate offices). The amazing Capitol Visitor’s Center has been completed since I was in DC last. It is beautiful!

View of the dome through the skylight…Philo T. Farnsworth statue…King Kamehameha statue…Replica of Lady Liberty on the top of the dome…Ry, Rara, Papa with Brigham Young statue…

Ry pointing out the place where Abraham Lincoln’s desk stood in the old House of Representatives chamber, now Statuary Hall…Some of my cool pics of the Capitol Rotunda…Senator Bennett’s office also gave us tickets to sit in the Senate Chamber or House of Representatives Chamber for a while. We went to the House Chamber, where they were discussing Health Care reform. Ryan was pretty excited when we heard on the news last night about the House of Representatives and the Health Care Reform Bill. He said, “We saw them talking about that!” Regardless of your political views and feelings about it, it’s always great to see kids make that connection.

The empty Visitor’s Center as we finished our tour…I had seen online that The National Archives closed at 7:00 pm on weeknights. That made me happy, since almost everything else closes at 5:00 or 5:30. So we started walking to the Archives building along Pennsylvania Avenue. We started hearing sirens. A LOT of sirens. They were getting closer. I said to Mom, “Hand me your camera,” just as THE PRESIDENT’S MOTORCADE drove toward us and turned the corner right ahead of us! I took a picture, but it’s blurry, and just caught part of the limo, so I’m not going to post it. But it sure was fun to see the whole motorcade!

When we got to the Archives building, the sign said that the SUMMER hours were until 7 pm. They close at 5:30 the rest of the year. We got there at about 6:00. We were disappointed that we didn’t make it to the Archives on that day, but excited about what we DID see!

We took the metro to Arlington, where La Rene picked us up and took us to her house. She cooked a yummy dinner. It was nice to be in a house with real food, rather than in a hotel with restaurant food!