Class trip to DC

Yesterday at 2:30 am I returned home from my son's 8th grade class trip to Gettysburg, Washington, DC, and Mount Vernon.  We had a great time but returned completely exhausted.  They pushed us hard everyday.

We left Wednesday morning at 6 am and drove to Gettysburg.  We stopped a few times on the way for potty breaks, change drivers, food, etc.  There was a wreck on the highway that put us arriving an hour late and we lost our reservations at General Pickets.  I was really looking forward to eating there.

On Thursday, we did a bus tour of Gettysburg.  Our guide was fantastic!  It was educational and fun.  When we left Gettysburg we went to the National Cathedral.  We had a really quick tour there.  It was beautiful and my pictures do not do it justice.  I wish we could have spent a little more time there.  Then we went to the Holocaust Museum.  We were not able to get tickets to the main exhibit of the museum and were only able to go thru a section about children of the Holocaust.  After that we had dinner at a local food court and picked up our tour guide.  He was a great guy; full of info and very funny.  That evening he took us around to the Washington monument, WWII, Vietnam, Lincoln, and Korean memorials.  The place was packed!  If you want to go to DC you probably should not go in May when all the schools are there.

Friday was a shorter day for us.  We went to the Grant memorial in front of the Capital Building for an official group picture.  The memorial is actually being renovated (like a lot of things in the area).  Then off to the Pentagon to see the 9/11 memorial.  It started to rain while we were there.  We also went to the Air Force & Iwo Jima memorials in the rain.  It was not on our schedule but our guide took us to the Botanic Gardens.  It was very pretty and I am glad that we stopped there.  The next stop was the McDonald's inside the Air & Space Museum.  This place was also packed!  I bet we waited in line for 30 minutes to get our food.  After lunch we had 3 hours to tour the Smithsonian museums!  My son said that he was most looking forward to seeing Air & Space so that is where we spent our 3 hours.  He really enjoyed it :)  After that we went back to our hotel for a pizza & pool party.

Saturday was packed with activities.  We started the day off with MLK Jr, FDR, and Jefferson Memorials.  There were a lot less people out in the morning and these spots were nice and peaceful.  Then we were off to the White House where we had some drama.  They could not find our group in the system even though we had a confirmation number.  They had to run new background checks on our group while we waited.  We stood in line for an hour and a half to spend less than 30 minutes inside the White House.  My son and I agreed that the White House was a complete waist of time.

After lunch we toured the Library of Congress and the Capitol.  The Capitol is currently being renovated.  It started to rain on our tour and we he had to run a half mile in the rain to get on our bus.  Then we headed out to Arlington Cemetery to watch the changing of the guard and our class laid a wreath on the tomb of the unknown soldier.  I really enjoyed all of Arlington.  Afterward we had dinner at an odd Italian place called Buca's.  It had a ton of half naked pictures on the walls which can be hard for middle schoolers to act appropriately around.  It was so very nice to go back to the hotel and put our feet up after so much walking!

On Sunday morning we packed up all of our stuff because we would be heading home.  It was a very cool morning and we started off at Mount Vernon.  The grounds were beautiful and the buildings were interesting.  I would have liked to spend more time here too.  Afterward, we had lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe in Washington and visited the National Archives.  Then we started heading west toward home.  We made a few stops for food, drivers changes, gas, etc.  We were more than 2 hours latter getting home than we had planned.

We had a great trip and I hope it is one that my son will always remember.  I took 8 letterbox clues with me and didn't find a single box.  I really didn't have time to look :(  I was able to get 13 passport stamps.  I could have gotten two more but that was the one spot where I thought I could actually get a letterbox.  But all the trees looked the same and I couldn't find it.