Day 1

What a great time we have had flying on Virgin American airlines. Our trip to Washington D.C. started off on a good note.  We went to a great buffet place called Magill’s for breakfast after Bob our tour guide meet us at the airport. The weather was wet and cold. Our 1^st place to visit was the Smithsonian Museums. We got into our groups and went our separate ways. We had the chance to go into a flight simulator and get turned up- side down. What a screaming fun time we had. Some groups walked around the area and were able to see other sights. Our group went to the holocaust museum. It was 4 floors of history regarding what had happened. When we started back to meet the rest of the group at the check in spot, it poured on us. We were soaked!  We met at our check in location and then went to the National Archives. The paintings around the top of the building inside where amazing. The doors to the national archives are 38 ½ feet tall, 13,000 pounds in weight per door. We then went out in the pouring cold rain to the Washington Monument up to the top! It was so neat to see The White House, The Capitol, and The Lincoln Memorial all at same time. We walked over to the World War II Memorial. It was beautiful. There was a huge waterfall in the middle of the memorial. It was surrounded by different columns representing each state. One side was Pacific and the other side was the Atlantic.  There were 4000 Gold stars on the wall. Each star represented 100 people that where killed.  It was then time to eat supper and our restaurant was Fuddruckers. The whole group had enjoyed dinner and ran back to the bus. It was about 7:00 and some of us had been up for 30+ hours. The students had been troopers! The chaperons also did great. We went to the Vietnam Memorial and saw the wall of names. The kids where touching the names on the wall, just wondering who they might be. One of our students found names that were the same as there mom or maternal grandmother. He wondered if they could have been related. Our next stop was the Lincoln memorial. Wow, most of us were in awe. It was bigger than life. We had one more stop before we could get to our hotel. We went to the Korean Memorial. The soldiers were standing as if they were in battle.  What a wonderful first day we had. Our Hotel was just a couple miles from the last site. We checked in and had a great night of rest.