Washington D.C. - Days 4 and 5

I'm so happy to get the next two days up for y'all to see! So, one my fourth day on my D.C. trip, I was able to go into the actual city of Washington D.C.! It was amazing, especially because I rode on an underground Metro subway for the first time! These may seem small to everyone, but I was so excited to go on the Metro! I had heard of people riding on these, but never experienced it myself, and let me tell you, it was quite the experience! When I first boarded, it was early enough in the transfer for me to be able to sit in a seat. Unfortunately though, pretty much every time I sat on the Metro, it was next to a stranger. Now this isn't a bad thing, but the way people interact in a big city is WAY different from the small town I live in. Usually, what I am used to is saying hello to people walking on the streets or at least smiling in this direction. The people on the Subway hardly acknowledged each other, even the people they were sitting right next to! Most people were reading books, using their phones or listening to music, and on some rides, the car was nearly silent!

Now that I've ranted about that, let's get on to the more interesting stuff! So, on day four, I was able to see the outside of the Library of Congress, tour the Supreme Court building and the Capitol building! By a bout of bad luck, it just so happens that my camera died halfway through our walk through the Supreme Court building so I have no pictures to show y'all of the rotunda and stuff, but I HIGHLY recommend Google searching pictures of it. Anyways, on the fourth day we walked passed the Library of Congress but did not go in because not everyone that came to D.C. with me was above the approved age. (You have to be 16 or older to go into the Library of Congress.) After that, we were able to walk to the Supreme Court building - the third branch of our government. We didn't do too much here, but we walked through a hallway that had the history of the Supreme Court on it, saw the spiral staircase and were able to peek in at the actual court room. We mostly just stopped here to fill in time because we had to go over to the Capitol building.

Now, the visit to the Capitol building was very special because not only were we able to see the building and learn about the history of it, but we were able to actually personally meet a house representative from Michigan! We were able to go to his office and sit to talk with him for about five minutes! Despite what it sometimes appears, representatives are just normal people and can be very friendly. After talking to the representative, we got a personal tour from one of his interns of the place. We wore special pins to wear and were able to see different areas and skip past certain lines. There's so many parts of the Capitol building that I just loved! One thing that stood out to me was the number of statues of various people. Our tour guide said that each state was able to choose two people that they deem important from that state's history and send a statue to the Capitol. The statues are spread out throughout the building, but there is one room where a good number of statues reside. The room is technically called the "National Statuary Hall" but is often nicknamed "the whispering gallery". In this large room, there are certain places that you can stand where you can hear someone whisper from yards away - even in a noisy hall! Our tour guide demonstrated it to us, and it's crazy how clear the whisper was despite all the commotion in the hall! In this hall, there are also little marks were certain presidents had desks. Another favorite part of the Capitol was the rotunda, and I'm so disappointed that I couldn't get pictures! The painting on the walls and ceiling of this room is so intricate and just awe-inspiring. My final favorite part was being able to see the House of Representative chamber! The line to get into this room took HOURS to get through, and by the time we got to the chamber, the house was in recess. Still, it was amazing to see the room and sit in the balcony!

On the fifth day in D.C. I went to Fredicksburg, Virginia. In Fredricksburg, we went to the Lacey House which was a monumental part of the civil war. It used to be a family's home, but was taken over and converted into a hospital. We also were able to see a Union cemetery before finishing up the day with ice cream!

Day 4:

Library of Congress

Library of Congress

Fountain in front of the Library of Congress

Outside of the Capitol Building - It was under construction.

Outside of the Supreme Court Building

Part of the design on the Supreme Court Building

Spiral Staircase

Ceiling of the Supreme Court building

Day 5: 

Gardens leading up to the Lacey House

More gardens and outer buildings of the Lacey House

Lacey House from the back

Cannon at the Lacey House

More gardens

Pretty flower at the Lacey House

The Lacey House

Flowers on a tree at the Lacey house. I don't know what they are, but I love them!

Close up of the flower

Magnolia tree at the Lacey House

Trail leading to the cemetery

They are hard to see, but these are the grave stones in the cemetery.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures! There's a few more days to put up!

~Emily Silverwing

Washington D.C. - Day 3

So, I've finally got day three of my trip to Washington D.C. ready to post! The rest of the days should be out soon! 

On the third day of my trip, I went to Jamestown and Yorktown in Virginia. Jamestown was the site of the first English settlers in the New World who were chartered by the Virginia company to come look for gold and riches. Instead, they were met with hardships such as disease, malnutrition and fatigue. The site of Jamestown today has four main areas for visitors to browse: an indoor museum, a replication of the Native America village, replication of the English settlement, and the port where the ships landed. Jamestown was amazing to walk through, and it was very interactive and kid-friendly. You were able to walk through the building and touch the things they had set out. In the Native American village, I was able to grind corn, sit in a hand-carved wooden canoe and scrap the fur off of an animal hide with a shell. In the English settlement, I was able to try on some of the armor people might have worn back then (and it was heavy!) and stand in the high pulpit of the church. 

Yorktown was the location of the Battle of Yorktown during the Revolutionary war where General George Washington defeated General Charles Cornwallis which started the end of the war. I didn't get to stay very long in Yorktown, but they had a museum that you could walk through and few videos you could watch in a theater. Their outside grounds were small, but they were interesting. There were a bunch of tents set up, a few buildings and a real garden that you could go see. I was also lucky enough to see a musket and cannon demonstration where kids from the crowd where able to load the cannon! They weren't able to actually fire it, but they could prepare it. 

Although I don't have any pictures of this, I also stopped in Williamsburg to eat lunch. We were going to attempt to stop at a tavern for lunch, but unfortunately we just missed them before they closed. Still, we walked around the town for a bit and saw all these old fashioned shops that had a certain charm to them. 

So that's about sums up day three! Here's some pictures of some of my adventures!

Jamestown

A view of a few of the wigwams of the Native Americans in Jamestown.

Another view of the Native American village.

It's hard to tell, but this is actually a hand-carved wooden canoe. It's hard to imagine actually being able to paddle in one of these!

A model of a Native American campfire.

The inside view of a wigwam. There were lots of handwoven baskets and animal furs.

We had to walk along a little path to get to the English portion of Jamestown. The main settlement was surrounded by a wooden fence like this one. 

An overview of the English settlement.

Another view of some of the settlement. I think that the houses are so quaint!

This is hard to see, but the little lump on the loft is a chicken. This was part of the schoolhouse and when I walked in there was a loud sound and a fluttering of feathers, and I was shocked to find some real live chickens in the schoolhouse! I can't imagine trying to learn with them wandering the place!

Another view of some of the structures.

This is the inside of the church. The pews had high, straight backs that looked uncomfortable, but the pew seating was actually really comfortable! On the right you can see the pulpit that I was later able to go stand on! It's quite the view!

This is one of the ships at the port. There were two ships there: a larger one and a smaller one. We were able to walk on and explore both ships. If I have anything to say about them, it's that they have some tight, narrow quarters!

The flag and mast on the larger ship.

Yorktown

One of the gardens in Yorktown.

A more green and live garden then the one above. 

A building in Yorktown with some white army tents in the background. 

A first view of Yorktown

This was the man who demonstrated the musket firing - uniform and all!

This is the inside of one of the little buildings in Yorktown.

Finally, here is a hat that hung on a nail inside the building above. Liberty or death? This statement was based on the quote by Patrick Henry, "Give me liberty or give me death!"

That concludes day three of my trip to Washington D.C. I'm hoping and trying really hard to get the rest of the days up soon!

~Emily Silverwing