Arlington

Our Last Day. We spent the morning leisurely and bade a fond farewell to our hosts. We left and headed to the airport via Arlington National Cemetery.

It was a beautiful day. We opted for the Tourmobile tour which stops at the three most popular sites: The Kennedy Gravesite, The Tomb of The Unknowns, and Arlington House. Along the way, a tour guide points out other sites. It's quite a hilly location so I recommend this tour for anyone who has any mobility issues. It's also nice for those of us who are just plain wore out!

Our first stop was the Kennedy Gravesite. This is a beautiful setting. The trees were in bloom. The visitors were respectful - mostly - and the view is breathtaking.

The next stop was the Tomb Of The Unknowns. We were in time for the Changing Of The Guard. Nearby are the memorials for the Challenger & Columbia astronauts so we visited those as well.

Our last stop was Arlington House. Arlington House was the home of Robert E. Lee and the Union government confiscated it for burial of Union Civil War dead during the Civil War. We decided that we would walk back to the front from here. We didn't wait in the line for the house since all of the furnishings have been removed and there are only photos of what the rooms used to look like.

On the way back to the front, we passed the graves of Robert Todd Lincoln, William Howard Taft, and General Omar Bradley.

We stopped at the Women's Memorial and saw the art installation "Faces Of The Fallen" which has portraits of all the servicemen killed in Iraq for the first two years of the war.

We tried to visit the Iwo Jima Memorial but couldn't find the right turn and kept passing it so we decided that we had indeed SEEN it and headed off to Baltimore to fly home.