Eastern Trip: Arlington & Fort McHenry

After yesterday's stressful jaunt through DC, we were all grateful for a slower day today. We slept in and took some time to clean our living space before checking out of our Pohick Bay camping spot (so beautiful, by the way).

We then headed to Arlington Cemetery to witness the Changing of the Guard. After seeing this last year I'd decided all of my boys needed to watch it. I just feel it is such a reverent and inspirational event. We don't often take time to pause and put much care on the details of our lives; I feel that's what this event represents. The whole cemetery invokes a sanctity of life emotion I think it's important to experience. Unfortunately, it was so hot we were dripping sweat by the end...which kind of detracted from that reverential feeling. :-/ That didn't stop the kids from talking a zillion pictures. So many graves!

At one point Joel said, "Look! There's another grove over there!" Who knew a group of graves was called a grove?! LOL

Arlington. Always a surreal experience.

image from www.lds.org

The kids then wanted to go see the DC Temple. So we drove straight through the city of District of Columbia to see third largest LDS temple. It was beautiful!  The "golden pecks" (Joel) make the DC Temple the tallest one we have.

Next we drove another hour to Fort McHenry, the birthplace of the National Anthem. We enjoyed about an hour and a half there walking around the fort. I was in awe of the beauty.

The fort overlooks Chesapeake Bay with all of it's shipping activity. It was magnificent to imagine the battle that took place there. I could feel inspired to write poetry about that place, as did Francis Scott Key. It was especially awesome to hear thunder in the distance, as if bombs were really exploding!

The boys had a blast exploring the fort.  My fine, young soldiers!  

We left there and drove to our next destination - - Philadelphia! We'll be exploring that historic city tomorrow! Can't wait!!