Memorial Day Weekend in DC

I love my friend Melanie Grant. There aren't many people in the world who would be able to stand a whole day with me, let alone a whole day while wondering around in the DC Memorial Day crowds. Mel and I, well we like a lot of the same things and it's nice to have someone who will go to all the historical sites with me. We made a whole day of our tourist activities Memorial Day. Amazing, it really was! I will admit, although I recognize the fact that the United States has it's problems (perhaps more now then in the past) I'm still proud to be an American and still support our armed forces. I am a little awed by the military...a hang on, I think, from spending some of my formative years living next to a army base in Central California. We moved away when I was 8 years old, but I still remember the taps and the t-ball game or practice stopping while they lowered the flag. The pledge of Allegiance was said and My Country its of Thee or America the Beautiful was sung every morning at the beginning of class. Those kind of things had a lasting impression.

Sunday dawned bright and beautiful, we went to a greatly reduced ward (many members of the ward were at Duck Beach for the weekend) and then after church we ate some food and took off for the metro to head up to DC. As we walked out to my car a few rain drops fell and I looked up. A very foreboding sky met my glace. By the time we got the metro, about 4 minutes later, the wind was trying to blow us away and rain got serious. But we were not to be deterred. Wet or not we were going to the Memorial Day concert. Apparently the worse of the storm passed while we were safe underground in the metro, but the rain hadn't stopped by the time we emerged. We were soaked by the time we got to the line to go onto the Capitol lawn. We got lucky. Because of the storm the place had been evacuated and many people had left...if that hadn't happened we might not have gotten in. The concert was fantastic. On our way back as we crossed on the streets near the Capitol building a group of police stood looking as if they were going to stop people at any second...Mel and I hesitated and then took a step into the street...no sooner had we done so when one of the police turned around, jumped in front of us and yelled "STOP!" Startled we stopped. He laughed and said, "Just kidding," and allowed us to go long our way. Who knew that the Capitol police were such comedians?

The next morning we got up at a reasonable hour and Sunday night's storm was just a memory...the day was beautiful. We headed out to the Arlington Cemetery. I admit as we saw people sitting next to Friday's freshly dug graves, most them solders coming 'home' from Iraq, crying, it was a little to much for me. It breaks my heart to see people suffering and in pain and it doesn't help that I'm a crybaby on normal occasions...I cried.

After Alrington Cemetery we headed into DC, us and a couple 100 thousand people, to see the parade.

I've only posted a few of the millions of pictures Mel and I took, but it will give you and idea how everything went down :)