Memorial Day Weekend - Day 4

We started out our last day with a metro ride to Foggy Bottom, and a bit of a walk to go kayaking in Georgetown.

Georgetown is an amazing neighborhood to explore. Lots of great architecture and fun shops. Under the Key Bridge, you'll find Jack's Boathouse.

For $14 we enjoyed an hour of kayaking on the Potomac. Pictures couldn't capture how fun and how beautiful it was.

After we cleaned up from kayaking, Kim, Nicole's friend from high school, picked us up for lunch. She took us to Ray's Hell Burger in Arlington.
Yum!

Next, we went to Arlington Cemetery. We saw the iconic Iwo-Jima memorial, listened to the music from the bell tower, and walked around the cemetery.It was a beautiful way to spend Memorial Day. Seeing the flags on the rows of white headstones was touching. It was nice to spend a quite moment reflecting on our military and all they do for our freedom.

To end the day, Kim took us to her favorite memorial at the Pentagon. I didn't know about this memorial, and once you understand the meaning behind the design, it is personal and moving.

The area of gravel has 184 floating benches, one for each person who died there on September 11.

Here you can see the difference in stone where they re-built after the plane crashed through the wall.

Each bench has the name of someone lost, along with any family members that may have also been on the plane with them. Each of them has their own bench in the park. This particular bench was a family with the parents, and two daughters. She was the youngest person who died - only 3 years old.

The benches are placed in rows, one row for each year from 1930-1998, the years the oldest and youngest person were born.

As you stand at the bench, you know how old that person was by what year the were born. The direction their bench faces is also symbolic. When you stand looking at their name, if you are facing the Pentagon, you know they died while working there. If you are facing away from the Pentagon, the direction the plane flew from, you know that they were passengers on the airplane.

It is an incredibly sobering and spiritual memorial.

Thank you, Kim, for showing it to us.
And thank you, Nicole, for coming to visit. It was a wonderful weekend.