Thursday - Dulles Airport, Arlington Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial

On Thursday morning we set off nice and sharp because we were on a mission to visit the National Air and Space Museum's Annex at Washington's Dulles Airport. So we took the metro from Foggy Bottom to Rosslyn, then a bus to Dulles airport, and finally a shuttle bus to the Museum. It took about an hour and a half. I had expected a couple of dusty old hangars full of planes so I was very gratified to find a smart modern museum with plenty of restrooms, a cafeteria and a shop. It was indeed full of planes though! There was a Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, a Concorde, the Space Shuttle Discovery, 

There was Enola Gay, the Boeing B-29 Superfortress which was used to drop the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, and an F14 Tomcat which is the kind of plane that Maverick and Goose flew in Top Gun. And many, many more! James was the happiest boy in the world! 

We returned to Washington via the bus and metro, then changed lines and went to Arlington Cemetery. It was a very warm and sunny afternoon and the white of the military graves contrasted with the warm rust reds and oranges of the autumn leaves on the trees. Washington was spread out below the cemetery and the whole atmosphere was muted and peaceful. There were many military graves, and John F Kennedy and his wife Jackie and two of their babies were buried on their own terrace with an eternal flame. 

We exited the cemetery and walked out along the broad driveway and across the Arlington Memorial Bridge over the Potomac River. The joggers of Washington were out in force on this very fine evening, and as we paused on a wide set of steps overlooking the river we noticed some joggers running up and down the steps again and again, as well as a man with a glistening torso doing all sorts of complicated sit-ups at the top of the steps. This is the city of fitness!

We then crossed the roundabout to the Lincoln memorial. It's huge with wide steps leading up to a covered area where giant Lincoln sits on his chair looking up the Reflecting Pool towards the Capitol in the distance. James realised that where we were sitting on the steps was just where Martin Luther King gave his "I have a dream" speech in August 1963.

It was getting dark by the time we reached the Vietnam memorial across the plaza; all those names of such young people, it was very sad. 

We had dinner at Nick's restaurant at Washington harbour; it was amazing to be sitting outside without even needing jackets on such a warm evening in late October.