And we’re back! The trip to D.C. was amazing, exhausting, educational, memorable… and germ-y. My plane touched down a week ago, but I’m just now recovering from all of it!
Me standing at the Lincoln Memorial looking over the mall.
I’ve got a million photos (okay, 324) of our trip, but I’ll try to just share the highlights. There were only two or three each day. 😉
We started with a night tour of the Monuments; Jefferson Memorial
FDR Memorial- this is actually one of my favorite memorials because of all the quotes.
World War II Memorial, which was also beautiful but hard to photograph as most of the lights were out.
The Korean Memorial which reflects your image in the etching of the faces of the soldiers.
And the Lincoln Memorial. Our tour guide said one of the “myths” is that Lincoln is using American Sign Language to finger spell his initials because Lincoln signed the charter for the deaf college, Gallaudet. This annoyed me to no end because that would be some of the worst signing ever, and the letters would be backwards, and just no. It’s not.
But moving on…
It wasn’t all play and no work! This is us meeting with a staffer in the House Committee on Agriculture. We met with our state reps and their staff, and spent time with one of our Senators.
We also met Wayne Pacelle of the Humane Society of the United States. If you don’t know about their scams, check out HumaneWatch.org. (Hint, they aren’t taking care of puppies.) Wayne was a little late to our meeting because he was busy lying to Congress, but let me tell you, the guy could sell snow to an Eskimo. It was an enlightening experience!
The guy on the far right is Congressman Jason Smith. He took us on a night tour of the capitol (as in we finished a little before midnight!). We couldn’t take our cameras in, but we got to go onto the Senate floor and see the signature in the desk of former President Harry Truman.
We also saw Mount Vernon, and thanks to a favor from an ALOT alum we got to visit Washington’s Gristmill and Distillery during the off season.
Usually we learn about Washington the General or President, but he referred to himself as a farmer, and he was a good one. He used every resource he had, sold every by-product made, and had a farm bigger than most in the US today- 8,000 acres. For comparison Marshall Farms rents, owns, and sharecrops a little more than half that amount and it supports two families.
This is the round barn Washington invented to thresh wheat.
And the cleanest manure compost I’ve ever seen.
The trip ended with dinner in a tavern frequented by Washington and other founding fathers.
As fun as it was, I’m glad to be back– missed ya’ll! 😉
Daddy's Tractor 