Day 6: Monday, June 22, 2009

Today we opened our droopy eyes to find ourselves in our home away from home. We dressed in our best for today we went to Mount Vernon. Not very many of us have been to George Washington’s home until today. Just knowing we walked up the same flight of stairs and touched the same hand rail would make us open our minds to every single detail. In the house we all passed by the room where Washington took his last breaths, then we continued on to his final resting place which is also located on the estate. Along with Martha and 20 other family members. Unfortunately this great tour had to come to an end. On our way back from Mount Vernon we passed by several embassy’s such as Japan, Germany and Sweden. After we relaxed back into our casual attire we listened to Angela Wasko speak about challenging ourselves to get involved. Following Angela was Jake Johnson who told us to find our passion and choose how it will impact our lives.




A few hours later we hopped back on to our coach where Mike drove us safely through terrible city traffic. We arrived at the Jefferson Memorial first with a beautiful river front view of the Potomac. We eagerly jumped back on to the bus to visit the FDR Memorial. The memorial was a very calm and serene place because of all the waterfalls that were included in the memorial.

Onward we went to the Lincoln Memorial, Korean War Memorial and the Vietnam War Memorial. As we walked around to these memorials our hearts never felt so warmed until we took our first steps down the long wall of names of men who died for us. As we returned back to our home away from home we all said good bye to one of our own. Today was Daniel Martin's last day with us.


Reflections:
All the memorials were fantastic!
We met some people from Kansas.
Chelsea Gerber said, “The memorials made everything more real”.

Courtesy of Jessica Grisier