Arlington Cemetery and Statue of Iwo Jima

I took a lot of photos at Arlington Cemetery.  It was both beautiful and tragic to say the least.  Its humbling and sacred to see a place like this and to realize the sacrifices made so we could be free.  Too bad so many people take it for granted and have a sense of entitlement rather than a sense of duty and honor.

I highly recommend a visit to this sacred place and also to read the history.  The history is too long to detail here.  I thoroughly enjoyed it and was glad we had decent weather.  It was a joy to go with my two daughters.

This is the morning of Day 3 and we did this before the long bus ride to New York City.

Karen and one of her many poses

The class moving through the cemetery.  Our tour guide really liked to move and did not like us taking pictures because it slowed him down.

The next few photos are just of the cemetery as we made our way up to the grave of the Unknown Soldier

Macey, Katy and Kylee

General Lee's house up on the hill

Eric and Karen.  Eric got in more trouble than me taking the photos

Not sure what kind of tree this is but there were lots of trees blooming.

One of my favorite trees

This is perhaps my favorite shot

the amphitheater on the other side of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

Waiting for the changing of the guards

it was very reverent watching the soldier and his slow march back and forth.  He would get to the end and turn around and snap his heels and then slowly march back to the other side and so forth.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

There was a story about one of the persons in the graves here.  He was a young man whom I believe was 10 who became a bugler at that age and then later throughout his military career became a General

View of the Washington Monument from Robert E Lee's mansion overlooking the cemetery

The Washington Monument among the magnolia blossoms

Inside Robert E. Lee's mansion

Graves of the Kennedy's

We huddle under the tree until the whole group is there.

Macey is always thrilled to get her picture taken

I like this photo a lot as well

The flag raising at Iwo Jima.  We went to this next after Arlington Cemetery and just before we drove to New York

This saying is true.  I wish it still were true

thats me in the purple shirt

Sunrise at our hotel.

The sunrise picture is out of sequence.  It must have been that mornings sunrise as we now get on the bus to go to New York City and the Empire State building.   The bus ride to New York was nice and gave us a chance to rest and reflect.  We stopped in Delaware for lunch at a train station which had a huge food court.  Me and Katy ate Popeye's Chicken and Macey may have had Burger King.  We had never eaten at Popeye's before.  We went to more than one train station to eat which was neat.  We do not have those in Idaho.  I will post the next story soon.