It's good to be in DC

We've had Mr Smith goes to Washington, now, the completely unofficial, unauthorised sequel - Mr Dawson goes to Washington!

After spending the night in some flyspeck village between Richmond and Washington, we made our way, slowly but surely, across various rivers, bridges, swamps, highways and byways, before finding ourselves entering Washington from the southeast. We decided we wouldn't go into the city itself until I'd had a chance to scout the place out online, vis a vis parking, locations of places etc. That said, we did venture into the maze of the city to visit Arlington National Cemetery, final resting place of some 220,000 Americans, including John F Kennedy.

The size of this place is amazing. Arlington itself was originally the plantation home of Robert E Lee, and confiscated by the United States Government when Lee offered his services to the Confederacy during the Civil War. The first burials took place in 1864, and have been occurring ever since. A sign out the front states that approximately 25 burials take place every week. It's not just servicemen killed on active duty that are buried here - retired servicemen, wives and children of servicemen are also buried here. There are also memorials and monuments to various military units, particular wars, a tomb of the unknown soldier as well as museums.

All in all, a fascinating place. There's nothing like it in Australia, although the old man assures me Westminster Abbey is an experience unto itself, so it will be interesting to compare British remembrance to Yankee remembrance. With today being the 21st of May, it leaves us with 15 more days with the car. Most of that will be spent pottering around Virginia, before we drive to New York to return the car and spend a few days there before flying onto London.
For today though, I'm heading for an early night. Pretty tired for some reason. I'll leave you with some photos from Arlington.


(Mayor Quimby Voice) Ich bin ein Berliner.


Other, less prominent graves, although no less worthy than that of the man above them.


A memorial to the 7 astronauts killed in the Challenger explosion.


The changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier. Only one soldier is on guard at a time, and he paces up and down the black mat, pausing at each end, before about facing and executing some drill based wizardry with his rifle. Watching soldiers drill is such an interesting experience - they are able to stretch out to five minutes what two normal people could do in five seconds, that is, put a new soldier on the mat, and take the old one off. Fascinating to watch though.


Finally, a nice motorbike for Dan to look at.