Have you ever woken up one morning and thought, "Oh crud. I'm late"? Well, that is what happened to us. We found out that our clock was half-an-hour slow and hadn't heard the wake up call. Our morning was a little rushed to say the least. When we went downstairs we saw that we weren't late. We just thought we had to leave at 7:00 AM, not eat at 7:00 AM. After3333333333333333 we ate, we all piled onto the bus. We were off to our first destination - the memorials.
The first memorial that our group went to was the Korean memorial. When I saw the 19 soldiers, each with their different facial expressions, I was awestruck. These soldiers were so real looking if felt that they were looking right at me. The fact that these soldiers most likely gave their lives makes me appreciate them even more. After walking around the reflecting wall, we headed over to Lincoln Memorial. We walked up the many steps and saw Lincoln. The statue was so big and the quote above, "In this temple as in the hearts of the people for whom he saved the Union the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever," rings true to me as it does to many of us. We posed for pictures with him then we went to look at the Gettysburg address. Since we had to memorize it in school, we had a lot of fun trying to recite it. After taking pictures we decided to check out the Vietnam Memorial. Phil had told us to choose a person and contact with them by either touching their name on the wall or rubbing it. They had an alphabetized book with all the names and information of the soldiers as well as they were located on the wall. I chose John Bailey from Gardiner, Maine, because my mom's maiden name is Bailey and he lived the closest to where the Bailey's lived in Massachusetts. I found his name on the wall and took a picture. I did fell more connected to him because I focused on him and the fact that we may be related. It was very emotional to see how big the wall was and how all the names on there were people that had died. After we had all found the people we wanted to connect to it was time to head back to the buses. As we walked back we saw a sprinkler in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Now, it wasn't as hot as the previous day, but the heat was still pushing 90 degrees. The sprinkler was looking awfully good. We decided to stand under it and let the spray hit us. Our team leader took our picture and we continued on.
We got back on the bus and rode over to the Smithsonians. They let groups off the bus based on where they were going. We were the last stop at the Natural History museum. When they let us in the first thing that was there was a giant elephant. It was really cool to see but so was everything else in the museum. We first went into the ocean section. There were tons of awesome animals in there including a 36' long squid. After seeing that we headed over to the bone section. The bones there were spectacular, and some of the sizes of the animals surprised me so much. That section led right into the mummification section. I knew a little about mummies going in, but they had so much more information in the section. The also had real mummies there, two men a one baby. There was a small, walk-through section that was made to look like a rainforest. This section housed a bunch of insects. That section led out to another large room for bugs. Here there was a lady who had four insects in jars. The bugs in the jars were the Madagascar Hissing Cockroach, Lubber Grasshopper, Australian Walking Stick and the Tobacco Hornworm. We were allowed to hold the cockroach and grasshopper, which some of us did. I held both, though the cockroach freaked me out a bit. While the grasshopper felt nice and elegant the cockroach was sticky and bulky. Afterwards we went to the mammal section where we saw many stuffed animals of all species. It was freaky, but we didn't say for long because we were hungry. We walk downstairs and ate lunch, then headed over to see the Hope Diamond. It was really pretty and I was shocked at the weight of the stone. After seeing the other stones we went to see the T-Rex skeleton, and then we left. We walked over to the Archives, picking up another group along the way. We went straight to the Rotunda, which contains the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of a rights and the Constitution. We had to wait in a long line, so we decided to play some games while we waited. We played eight person concentration, then decided to play faux par. That is a game where you make up a story, each person saying one line. The catch is that you have to go in alphabetical order, like "Apples are red." "But some are green." and so on. If you start with the wrong letter you are out. It was really fun and it passed the time until we could see the documents. It was so cool to see the pieces of paper that shaped America, and I will never forget seeing them. We left the Archives soon after and started to head back to our meeting place. Along the way we saw a park filled with unique sculptures. We stopped along the way to see them and saw a large fountain. We all stopped and dipped our feet into the cold water, and it definitely cooled us down. There were some ducks there,vans we fed them straight from our hands. We continued on and met up with the rest of the Freedom Tour members at the Museum of Natural History. Everyone hopped on the buses and we headed back to the hotel.
Since the dinner theater was tonight we were given one and a half hours to get ready. Our room had a mini party, turning on some music while we were getting ready. We were all very excited. I mean, we got to dress up, eat fancy foods and see a show! When the time was up we took a group photo. We went onto the buses and drove to Toby's Dinner Theater. At the theater we sat at numbered tables, and when they called your number you went up to get food. The food there was delicious, as well as the food. After we had eaten, the show, The Wizard of Oz, started. It was a round theater so it felt that you were right there in the show experiencing it. The acting and singing was fantastic and the props were very well made. It was an awesome time there, and I loved every second of it, though I could have done without the smoke wafting into my face from the play. Overall it was a very eventful day filled with touching and awe striking moments, and I can't wait to see what tomorrow has in store.
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