Benjamin's DC report (a guest post by Benjamin)

This is the first time I went to Washington DC with the capability to remember things. I have gone before, most notably in 2014, and 2016. I also went in November of 2012, but I was a tiny baby then so I really don’t remember anything at all. Rachel and Miriam have taken this trip before with Grandpa.  Their record walking distance was ten miles. We did not walk ten miles in the blazing hot sun as Rachel and Miriam did, but we did walk 6 miles the first day and 8 the next, which brings our total to 14, which is higher than theirs. This trip was the third time we planned out the dates. We had originally decided to go in September of 2025, but Grandpa had surgery and couldn't go. The second time we planned it, the government shut down for 43 days–both breaking the previous record and closing all the museums we wanted to go to. This third time, however, was not postponed, so we were able to go.

Washington D.C is our nation's capital. It's where the seat of government sits and it's where many people live in and travel to. It was founded as “Compromise Capital”, as the government wanted a place to be outside of an actual state. My Grandpa said that L'Enfant Plaza is called that because it has so many museums and kids love going to museums. Which is true but I think he was joking because it was actually named after the architect who designed the city on land that New York and Maryland donated whose name was Pierre Charles L'Enfant. It is built on the Potomac for many reasons. The first being that no one wanted that land because it was swampy and gross so that's why the states donated it. And the second is that it helps with defense because an attacking army can only really invade from one side. That second reason however is posing problems as the city expands as it makes commuting harder for those who live across the river. As there are only so many bridges and metro lines for commuters to use to get to work. Speaking of the metro, we used it to get around everywhere. So I will talk about it next.

The Metro

The metro in Washington DC is not the best in the world that goes to multiple ones in Asia but it tries to be clean and a thing that people want to use. We mostly used the blue line train because it's the one that we needed but we did use orange and silver sometimes as well. I loved using the metro and not touching the car for a week. I have many funny stories but the best one is when Zoë got stuck behind the gate. She swiped her card and then grandpa said Zoë! Over here she went over and tried to swipe her card on the other side but she could not go to the other side twice so grandpa had her go in front of him and he succeeded! But right as she went through it closed on him! And so he had to hand Darla his card so she swiped it on one side and then gave it to him and then he swiped it on the side that he was on and finally went through. We then went up the stairs and to the spy museum.

Lincoln

Lincoln was our country's 16th president. He was the first one assassinated and has left a mark on our history.The Lincoln memorial uses stone from all across the country to symbolise how Lincoln brought unity to the states. The terrace walls and lower steps comprise granite blocks from Massachusetts, the upper steps, outside facade, and columns contain marble blocks from Colorado, the interior walls and columns are Indiana limestone, the floor is pink Tennessee marble, the ceiling tiles are Alabama marble, and the Lincoln statue comprises 28 pieces of Georgia marble. The statue is 19 feet tall and one hundred and seventy five tons. The Gettysburg address is carved into the wall on the right of the Lincoln statue and his second inaugural address is carved into the wall on the left of the statue.

The entire monument is based on the Parthenon in Ancient Greece, which was once the largest temple of Athena in the world. 

The Gettysburg address is one of Lincoln's most famous speeches, and it's not even that long! The reason for this is that he was not the main speaker of the day at Gettysburg after the battle. That honor was given to senator Edward Everett who had an impressive two hour long speech compared to  Lincoln was invited to give a few remarks at the end hence the 2 minute Gettysburg address.

He was the president who saw the end of the war that took more American lives than all of the other wars before and after this one combined. A range of 620,000 to 750,000 dead. This number is around 2% of the population of America at the time. And most of the soldiers that died did not die in battle! They died in their camps because of poor hygiene and disease. 

Lincoln loved theater and often visited Ford's theater to watch the plays that were performed there. This habit of his was sadly used against him by John Wilkes Booth who had performed in the theater before, while Lincoln was watching. The play that Lincoln saw Booth play in was Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and had, while delivering some of the most threatening lines in the play, had stared up at where Lincoln was in the presidential box. Lincoln was shot by a small one round pistol which had a bullet that weighed less than an ounce. After Booth shot Lincoln, he jumped out of the box and onto the stage, breaking his leg in the process. After Lincoln was shot he was brought to the Peterson house across the street where he was treated until he died.

Washington

Washington was our country's FIRST President. The Washington monument was Designed by Robert Mills. It took more than 40 years to finish, which is a long time! The Monuments marble blocks are held together by just gravity and friction; no mortar was used in the process. It is five hundred and fifty five feet tall, but its original plans are for it to be 600 ft tall but the army engineer in charge of the build Thomas Lincoln Casey senior scaled it down because of weight restrictions and the obelisk formula which states that the height must be 10 times the width of the base and the base is 55 and a fifth feet tall.

There is a law that no building in Washington D.C can be higher than the Washington monument just like Paris with the Eiffel tower. When you look at the Washington monument you can see two different types of stone. This is because they had to stop construction during the civil war and the quarry that they were using before was compromised or not able to be used after the war ended. So they transitioned to a different one and the stone was a different shade of white. 

George Washington is one of my favorite U.S presidents. I even dressed up as him for halloween once!

Mount Vernon

On the way back we stopped at Mount Vernon and it was cold wet and rainy after we left it even started to snow! We got to it early and because it was rainy and cold we did not do our garden tour so we had to sneak into the tour before our 12:30 one which was not that hard all we had to do was ask if we could. Mount Vernon is built on the Potomac river a couple miles away from the main city of Washington DC. It's where Washington went after his two terms as president. In fact one European noble was so impressed that Washington went back to farming after leading the country that he tore a fireplace out of his home and sent it to him. This fireplace now sits in the green room of the manor. Stepping out of the green room you go to the patio where there is a wonderful view of the Potomac river. We looked out at the Potomac for a little bit and then went back inside of the house because it was cold! We went upstairs and saw the Lafayette bedroom and Washington's own room! After going through the house we explored the grounds and that's when it started to wintry mix and it was getting miserable outside so we decided to quit and went back to the car. On the way back we went back inside and saw this amazing lego Mount Vernon:

Which I thought was so cool! I enjoy looking at the miniatures and the models in museums but having one in lego was amazing. I also enjoyed the ones in the congress buildings visitor center.

Congress, national archive, and the supreme court

We visited these very cool places in a very short amount of time so I will talk about them in one section. The shortest visit in this section was the supreme court building as we only walked outside of it as there was a police fence in front we went there after the library of congress which was cool to see. It was just a very ornate library but we saw the place where the main characters ran away from the police in national treasure two! There is a door at the big front desk in the middle. We were able to go into the congress buildings visitor center which had miniatures that depicted the congress building throughout the ages showing how it grew and the area around it grew from a small town to a bustling city. After looking at those we may have not gone where we were supposed to go and went down into an area that had a a lot of statues but it was fine as we didn't get arrested.

The national archive was one of the places we visited on the first full day that we were in DC along with the air and space museum and i think that it was pretty cool that we got to see the declaration of independence and all of our founding documents in the rotunda even though that's all that we saw. All of the architecture in DC is based on Ancient Greece… well most of it and it was cool to see things that i have heard of in Percy Jackson and ancient myths.

Spy Museum

The spy museum was my favorite museum of the entire trip. We walked in and went up huge cargo elevators up to the actual museum from the ground floor. Once we got our fake identities and missions we watched a short video that had actual spies in it talking about what they do. Then we went on to the first part of the museum. The first room talked about spies throughout history and what traits made them good spies, such as loyalty, courage, and the ability to know when to make your leave quietly. At the spy museum there are different interactive stations where you can swipe your spy card to use skills that you learn throughout the museum to complete your mission. I was good at most of the interactive stations except for the tech lab. did not make the correct gadget on the first try. My gadget was an audio recorder in a portable charger. 

My favorite station was the coded message station where I had to decode a Jefferson cipher to get a very important piece of information pertaining to my mission. Which I cannot disclose as I am still sworn to secrecy. I did a pretty good job not getting arrested during the OPS station where I had to find things that could  compromise the mission such as cameras and too much security. I only took 2 pictures during the entire self guided tour which is 100% my fault but the pictures that i did take are also of the same thing. A big balloon tank like that which was used during the ghost army mission in world war two. As you can see it would be confusing for an enemy airplane flying overhead if you saw several of these mixed in with normal tanks as well. It would make your force seem much bigger than it actually is. This tactic was a form of spying/espionage. However this tactic would not have been as effective if it had not been for for so called “double agents” who worked for one side and the other. Although normally they are biased towards their home country. These double informants told lies or half truths to the enemy, normally to disguise true troop movements. This was used most notably during D-day when many spies told the Germans that British and American troops were moving to attack the Pas-de-Calais region in fact during D-Day the Germans thought that it was just a diversion so they sent more troops to Pas-de-Calais to make sure that it was safe! 

Air and Space Museum

The national air and space museum was really really cool. I probably took the most pictures at this museum. It's probably only rivaled by the American history museum. Right as you walk in you see the test eagle lander. The one that did not go to the moon. It looks REALLY sketchy, like it's held together by duct tape.  You can see which half stays and even the parts that keep it together! The hatch to enter was really small from where I  was on the ground although it is probably big enough to fit the astronaut with the large EVA suit on.

After Zoë and Darla came back from the bathroom we went to the very beginning which is a very good place to start. The Wright brothers exhibit which had the original Wright flyer. Which looks backwards compared to our biplanes nowadays. My favorite exhibits were the going to the moon one and the one about space exploration in pop culture.

I saw the thrusters for the Saturn V rocket and both the Columbia and Gemini command modules which I think would be horrible to be stuck in such a small space for that long. It would be fine if it was just one person but sharing it with one or two other people would be… not fun. 

On our way out I saw a huge star trek starship and went over to chuck it out and it turns out that it was the original model enterprise that they used in the filming of star trek: the original series I used to think that the models were small. Able to be held in your arms but no! The Enterprise was like six feet long!

Museum of American history

The museum of American history was one of the best museums that we visited on this trip. Some people call it “America's attic” because it holds so many things. 

From Dorothy's slippers to Captain America's shield. It holds things that pertain to our culture and things that are so obviously American. I saw so many things that I love. From R2D2 to C-3PO and the suit that Lin-Manual Miranda wore during Hamilton. Me and Zoë were not very good at going away from grandpa and exploring on our own. But even though we didn't go off and explore by ourselves we still saw some cool stuff! I have I've been watching Star Trek Discovery lately. It's been my show for the past couple weeks and I saw a star trek EVA suit that was worn by Sonequa Martin-Green on star trek discovery. I am not in the season where she does but it was still cool to see.

War stuff

I will start with the Vietnam War memorial. All we did was walk halfway down it and back up but the wall was very powerful with the names of all the soldiers who died in that horrible conflict.

Next we went to the Korean War memorial which has all of the names of the countries whose troops went to help. From Sweden to South Africa. We also visited the WW2 memorial, the Atlantic theatre side.

Marine corps museum 

The marine corps is a branch of the navy, hence marine in the name. The museum was cool and it had a very propaganda-y film at the end. This was the very first museum that we visited. We went there before we checked into the VRBO in Pentagon city. We did get inside 45 minutes before it closed so we did not visit the entire museum but we did see the first and second flags that were raised on Iwo Jima(below) and we saw the modern terrorism section where we saw a world trade center I-beam. Also in the spy museum we saw a part of the pentagon from when it got attacked.

Arlington Cemetery

We also went to Arlington Cemetery which is where soldiers go when they die in battle. There are over 400,000 graves. We went on a trolley tour but they dropped us midway to the tomb of the unknown soldier so that we could catch the changing of the guards. We did have to walk up to Robert E Lees house to catch another trolley. On that trolley we saw the most decorated section of the cemetery. There was even a cannon that was the grave marker of a civil war general! The memorials for the Challenger and the Columbia space shuttle missions.

It was a very powerful sight to see with all of white grave markers standing up. Contrasting to the green grass.

Appomattox courthouse 

Appomattox courthouse was where the civil war ended; it was a small collection of homes and businesses that had a courthouse in the middle. And it happened to be the union base of operations while they were chasing down Robert E Lee.

Random stuff

We visited people on both legs of the trip. The Kramers on the first half and Clarke and Lynea on the trip home. We could have done it all in one go like what me and Miriam and grandpa did on the way back from Utah 2 years ago in 2024 when we did 2 15 hour drives in two days. It was not fun but we were able to get home really really quickly. They were all super nice and I especially enjoyed seeing Brad Kramer's office closet which was full of Lord of the Rings memorabilia and toys which was amazing.

Our VRBO was on the 13th floor of a building in pentagon city. You could even see the pentagon from my room! We had to get up so that we could be on time to the places that we wanted to go to and so grandpa threatened tickles and ice and so when he asked us to get up we shot out of bed and woke up when we were asked.