Tuesday, April 30~
We didn’t do much this day. RJ worked most of the day and I blogged for awhile before walking to Arlington Cemetery.
I watched the Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier several times and walked around the cemetery until RJ met me there to watch the Changing of the Guard.
It is fascinating to watch the guards. Everything is timed to the second. They are never off. They walk 21 steps, turn and face the Tomb for 21 seconds, turn back to the mat and change their rifle to the outside shoulder and count 21 seconds, walk 21 steps to the other side of the mat, turn and face the Tomb again for 21 seconds, turn back to the mat and change their rifle to the outside shoulder and count 21 seconds, then repeat until the Changing of the Guard.
A few fun facts about the Tomb, guards, and cemetery:
- The Tomb is guarded 365 days a year, 24 hours a day no matter the weather.
- It has been guarded continuously since 1937.
- The cemetery contains over 400,000 graves and counting.
- There are at least 25 funerals conducted each week day in the cemetery.
- Sentinels, or guards, do not have a rank. This insures that they never outrank the unknowns whom they are guarding.
- Sentinels go through grueling training to earn the right to guard the Tomb. They must strive for perfection. For example, their uniform can be no more than 1/64″ out of place. There are more than 100 points of inspection for a sentinel’s uniform.
- Sentinel’s must memorize 17 pages of information on the cemetery and write it out with the correct punctuation. They may have no more than 10 mistakes.
- It can take 5-6 hours, sometimes 12 for a sentinel to prepare his uniform.
- When the sentinels aren’t guarding the Tomb but are still on duty, they are in the quarters below studying and perfecting their uniform.
- The Guard, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Identification Badge is the second-least awarded badge in the US military. Less than 660 soldiers have been awarded this badge.
~Wednesday, May 1~
We got up at 6:30 and drove 100 miles to Dover. It is a small capitol. We got our stamp and walked through the entire building in about 10 minutes.
We drove to a little gift shop down the street to buy our coffee mug and then to the Governor’s Cafe for a bite of breakfast before heading back to Washington D.C. to tour the nation’s capitol. (These pictures are from the back of the capitol, because that’s where we had to go to get inside)
We timed it just right and got there 2 minutes before the tours were to start. The House and Senate were in session but we didn’t have passes to go into the houses. After the tour, I bought my coffee mug while RJ took the bike to a coffee shop near by for a meeting.
I walked to the White House and sat in the park across the street to enjoy the spectacle going on in front of the White House. There was a group of guys with their boombox blaring and they were dancing and doing flips and such. Next to them was a lady with a really terrible sounding speaker system and she was BELTING out Christian songs and other made-up songs with lyrics she would repeat over and over. The only thing is, she was a TERRIBLE singer. I mean, horrible. In between songs, she would read Bible verses from her phone. But she would be really out of breath from singing so loudly. It was comical. Everyone would give her such interesting looks. A lady sitting on the bench next to me said, “I wonder if anyone has told her that she can’t sing?”
And to top it off, right next to her, was a guy playing the bagpipes! Now, the only time bagpipes sound great is when you have earplugs in or you are deaf. Neither one seemed to care that they both didn’t sound good and they continued like this for hours.
And next to them were a couple of Jehovah Witnesses with a couple racks of pamphlets. Must have been the day to “witness.”
The Supreme Court Building. ^^^
Old Post Office. ^^^
*I have a short video of the lady singing and the bagpipes in the background but it’s too big of a video to upload. If you would like to see it, message me on WhatsApp or text me and I’ll gladly send it your way. 530.514.7868*
I walked back to where RJ was working and we went to get burgers before heading back to the Airbnb to pack for the next leg of our trip starting the following day.
~em