Road Trip 2005 - Day 6

Wow, it is COLD! The temperature dropped to the low to mid 50's and we all packed for 60's at the coldest. We managed to suffer thru it, though, an go see all the war memorials, plus Lincoln. We started off with a bang at the WWII Memorial, because we didn't know how much PawPaw would be able to handle. Big L pushed him all day in his wheelchair, and PawPaw gladly let Big J snuggle up there in his lap to keep them both warm! I'm going to post Big L's version of it today, and let him be the guest blogger:

first day in to dc. we took the metro bus a short trip out of our park
to the greenbelt subway station. the subway was very fast and really
cool. Houston needs some sort of mass transit.

by the way- low last night in the lower forties. low tonight upper 30s.
we had to run the rv heater last night and tonight. again, to my
amazement flawless operation.

first stop was the ww II memorial. "We came not to conquer but for
freedom and to end tyranny" . downright awesome. you just need to come
see it. its an incredible tribute with granite, water pools and
fountains. has great quotes from famous ww II era leaders engraved in
various places. was really cool to see paw paw tear up along with
granny. granny was more of an out right cry. we took a miillion
pictures you can check out for yourself. paw paw was wearing his WWII
veteran cap. a . a number of people young and old would just come up
and say thank you. a young marine came by and shook paw paws hand and
said "its men like you that made me stay in". while walking down the
sidewalk beside the lincoln memorial (i was pushing paw paw in the
wheel chair) i see a young late high school or early college age girl
with a small group of other girls swerve toward us and say "thank you
for your service, sir". also, a grandmother came up to paw paw and said
"my grandson wants to get your autograph". the boy about 10 came up and
paw paw signed a wwII memorial postcard: to my buddy michael, HS
Shuman, fireman 1st class, US Navy. Several other vets were there and
paw paw traded pacific stories about okinawa. i listened to an old
marine major who survived a bad fight in anzo italy. he said we lost
more guys in that anzo battle than we did storming normandy.

the other highlight was the korean war memorial. the statues of the
soldiers walking in battle conditions is awesome. it has a huge black
granite wall with images of soldiers etched in its side. also engraved
in the wall is a large "freedom is not free". we took several pictures
of me and the kids and some with just the kids in front of the soldier
statues. we told them both about their grandady fighting in the war.
they tried to soak it in and i hope something sticks so they can
remember how fortunate they are and how both of their grandads served
america's call of freedom.

The lincoln memorial, vietnam memorial, and women of the vietnam
warmemorial were also incredible. TB's bugging me about hogging her
computer so that'll have to wrap for today. L