September 22, 2008

Monday 22~~~ Today we again road the bus to the subway and from there we rode the subway to DC. We had tickets to see the National Cathedral at 9:00 AM, which meant we had to be on the first bus at 8 o'clock. We still had to run like crazy to find the place and the right door. Everything is so large and it covers so much space that you can take 15 minutes to find the right door. The grounds of the Cathedral, called the "Close" is 57 acres, which includes the Cathedral, three schools the offices of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington and St. Alban's church. The Cathedral is a non denominational church The foundation stone was laid in 1907 in the presence of President Theodore Roosevelt and the Cathedral was completed in 1990__83 years later when the "final finial" was placed in the presence of President George H.W. Bush. Built of Indiana limestone the Cathedral is the 6th largest in the world, 680 feet tall. The design is original and not copied from any other building.. The building is shaped like a cross and the architectural style is Gothic. It has so many gorgeous stained glass windows each depicting special things. When you look at the third picture ( Red and blue circles) in the center of the red circle, is a white spot with a black spot in the center of it. The black spot is moon rock brought back from the moon by the astronauts. There are 27 different bays. That is what they call them, but I call then Chapels. It is so beautiful, there are no words to describe it and it takes a few hours to tour it all. From here we grabbed a hot dog from a vendor on the street over where the National Memorials are and we proceeded to tour all of them. We went to the "Vietnam Memorial" first, it was one big long wall with all the names of the soldiers who fought and died for their country, there was a cross or plus mark by the names of those missing in action. If they have been found since the wall was completed, there is a star added to their name. Next the "Lincoln Memorial"( it was so large) Lincoln is 19 feet tall and 19 feet wide, made of marble, there are a lot of steps to climb going up there. There are 36 columns around the memorial which represent the 36 states in the union at the time of Lincoln's death. The monument was completed in 1922. The"Korean Memorial", had actual sized soldiers that looked like they were out on a maneuvor, There was so many of them and they actually looked real when you came up to them. There was also a wall with all the names from the war on it and it also had faces of soldiers etched in it. The "World War II Memorial" was placed between the Lincoln and the Washington memorials to reflects the importance of World war II in preserving and internationalizing democratic ideals won under George Washington and defended under Abraham Lincoln. The memorial continues America's story of striving for freedom and individual rights. It was built in a circle and it had each state engraved on a pillar. The Freedom Wall's 4000 gold stars commemorate the more than 400,000 Americans who gave their lives in the war. Last is the "Washington Memorial" which is 555 feet tall, you can see it no matter where you stand in DC. We took the elevator ride to the top which took 70 seconds. When it was first built the elevator was steam powered and took about an hour to reach the top. One of the amazing things about the Monument was that it was finished in 1884 and that was before they had cranes to lift the heavy Marble blocks to the top. It must have been a real project to hoist all those marble blocks up so high. All of the memorials are done so realistic and touring them makes you realize that our freedom is very costly with so many of our soldiers giving up their lives for us. It was very humbling to see the beautiful memorials honoring the soldiers from the different wars we have fought for freedom.