Washington Monument and Friends in DC

I had to add this photo in. I found lots of these tulip tree flowers around the campground after a storm. They are so pretty.

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We were up really early (4:45) to get dressed and out to the Washington Monument in hopes of getting tickets to go up in the monument. We were there by 6:30 and 3rd in line. We passed the time studying for marine ecology for 4-H, playing Minecraft and talking to a bird. I called him Birdie Sanders! 🙂

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We got tickets to the 9:00 group! We were first in line and eager to get up.

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We waited in the elevator bay and read the signs about George Washington.

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Once up we looked out all 4 sets of windows and could see a lot of DC> It was pretty amazing!

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I liked looking out over the reflecting pool. I decided that the monument is a giant sundial.

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From below we could see the flashing red lights to warn planes of the tower. We found the flashing lights up in the tower.

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We had a great view of the White House! I think I saw Obama! Okay, not really.

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After the tippy top we went down 15 stairs to a history center on the monument. We learned all about the construction and the 2011 earthquake (Dad was in DC during the earthquake).

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On the way down we saw some of the stones donated by the states.

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Next we went back to the American History museum with hopes to meet up with Aran, my friend who moved to Washington state a while ago.

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While waiting we saw Prince’s guitar, the Yellow Cloud.

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Finally we met with Aran and went off exploring!

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We spent more time in the Spark Lab inviting new things.

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Aran got to be on the invention wall with us!

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We all really liked the history of technology sections. It was neat to see how computers have developed.

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I even got to use an old DOS machine to make a cat avatar!

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We had a great time learning, exploring and catching up with our Washington state friends. I think it was really special that we were both in the same down on the same day and could connect and play.

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