Monuments and Memorials Walking Tour

Saturday started with a game of Simon Says on the lawn next to the Washington Monument.  It was a gorgeous day--finally!  We ordered tickets a long time ago to ride to the top of the monument and Lucy and Ella have been SO excited about it!

This is inside the monument, after the extensive security check waiting for the elevator and tour guide.
The top floor of the monument is 500 feet up and there are windows on 4 sides, facing north, south, east and west.  It takes the elevator only 70 seconds to get to the top!This is the north view, looking at the White House and the Ellipse.
Here's the view to the west, looking at the Lincoln Memorial, Reflecting Pool, and World War II Memorial.
After looking out the windows, we walked down a flight of stairs to wait for the elevator to take us down.  It was a short visit, but well worth it!
The Washington Monument started off our walking tour...
...the next stop was the World War II Memorial.  This was the first time that we were there among a big group of veterans, and it was pretty emotional.  We couldn't move on without a picture by the Wisconsin pillar.

From there we started the long walk around Tidal Basin to get to the Jefferson Memorial.  Although we missed out on seeing the cherry blossoms, the trees were very pretty.
The setting of the Jefferson Memorial is stunning.  Tom has a great view of the White House and Washington Monument.
Grandma and Grandpa helped the girls count the steps on the way up...I believe they said there were 40.We continued our walk around Tidal Basin to see the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial.  It was beautiful!  There were statues, waterfalls, trees, and flowers...we didn't really know what to expect, and it was a great surprise. 
Here's Lucy and our Eleanor with Eleanor Roosevelt.  Turns out that FDR's mistress's name was Lucy, but there wasn't a statue of her at the memorial.
The girls were thrilled to finally meet Fala, FDR's dog.  In one of our books, Clifford the Big Red Dog Goes to Washington, Clifford meets Fala, so this was a highly anticipated event.
We stopped for a picnic lunch on the Tidal Basin walkway and enjoyed the shade and the view.
The next stop was the Korean War Veterans Memorial...again, a moving experience as there were quite a few veterans there.
This view from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial just doesn't get old, and it was especially gorgeous with the bright blue sky.
We were so close to having Abe all to ourselves for a picture...the memorial was packed, so this was the best we could do.
The back side of the Lincoln Memorial was completely empty and had a fabulous, much needed breeze.  We sat and enjoyed the quiet and cooled off for a bit.
Our last stop of the day was the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

This is a little house that served as the Canal Master's quarters back when Constitution Avenue was a canal.  On our Duck tour, we learned that the Canal Master and his wife lived here with their 13 kids!  This fact really stuck with Lucy...out of the blue, she started telling my mom and dad about "the little cottage where a lot of people lived."  It took me a while, but I figured out that this is what she was talking about!  She was excited to show Grandma and Grandpa and had to have a picture with it.

We walked more than 6 miles and were out and about for 8 hours...needless to say we were exhausted.  The subway took us back to Silver Spring and we had a yummy Mexican dinner and Coldstone Creamery for dessert!