Washington, DC - Day 4 - Monday, July 5th

I arose early this morning. I spent my time before the humans got up avoiding Julie’s cat. She looks scary! Thankfully, John put us (me, Polly, Lucky) in his bag. We were out of harm’s way. Of course, that also meant we couldn’t see anything on the way to DC. If it were for the John’s water jug, we might’ve gotten heat exhaustion. Talk about hot!

Julie decided to do the hills of Arlington cemetery first. No one wants to hike up hills in heat, she figured. Me – I could’ve flown to the top of the hills, if John would let me out of this bag! But he didn’t. I heard about the eternal flame at JFK’s grave and I also heard the changing of the guard. But mainly I heard silence. Solemn silence. Everyone was paying their respects for those who fought for our freedom.

Well, we didn’t’ want the entire day to be a downer, so we caught a train to the stop near The National Archives. Julie got us tickets for the 1 PM showing. That gave us plenty of the time to eat lunch. Well, plenty of time FOR THEM! We got nothing. Bupkus. Nada. Zilch. I tried begging from bystanders, but no one understood me. I guess I have to speak Pidgin. (Pause for groan at the terrible pun. It was John’s fault – Honest!)

After lunch, we walked to the National Archives. I got to see the façade, but not the inside. Apparently “No Cameras” = “No Free Range Chickens”. So much for The Emancipation Proclamation! The tour of the Archives took about an hour, so we had two more hours until our tickets for The Washington Monument. We found a really cool sculpture garden where my comb was HUGE and trees were metallic. We wandered through the Smithsonian “Castle” and meandered our way to the Monument. We even stopped for popsicles (none for us, of course). Not too many people were wandering around the mall. It was REALLY hot! I was broiling!

Thankfully, 4 PM came quickly. We were ushered into an elevator that took us to the top. It was a very cramped area, but the views from up there were AWESOME! You could see The White House, The Capital Building, and everything in between. Amazing views. I even met some nice Japanese tourists who took my picture. I am an international celebrity, baby! I bet they would’ve fed me.

Soon our tour of the monument was over. As we descended, I realized it was almost dinner time. Wonder what’s for dinner? Well, Julie decided we should have seafood in the dockland area. We hailed a taxi that took us to an area with seafood galore! I even got some dinner, as John was generous with his crabcakes. But he didn’t give me any of his strawberry lemonade. Oh well – at least he fed me!

By the time we got on the train, found Julie’s car in the parking garage, and drove home, I was exhausted. Where’s my bed? What? Yes, yes … I’ll be ready to leave in the morning for Gettysburg. It’s a huge open field – of course I’ll be ready! I can hardly wait!