Arlington

It’s raining heavily when we wake up this morning, not good for a drive to Washington DC. So I’m feeling very anxious about the journey as we set off, the pavements are awash with water and some parts of the road are flooding. The journey doesn’t get any easier as we get onto the interstate, in fact the windscreen wipers are struggling to keep up, then suddenly we see a tidal wave of water heading towards us. It’s only by cool driving that Dave doesn’t hit anything as we wait for a few tense seconds for the windscreen to clear. Gradually as we head further south the rain stops and by the time we reach Washington it’s dry.

Washington DC from Arlington Cemetary

Our room isn’t quite ready so we walk to Arlington Cemetery past the Marine Corps memorial (Iwo Jima memorial) and the Netherlands bell tower memorial. The sight of all the white gravestones in straight lines is very moving, Dave says it ticks all his OCD boxes! It’s a long walk to the Tomb of The Unknown Soldier but we reach it with 5 minutes to spare before the next changing of the guard. The ceremony is very precise and performed with great reverence and when requested by the soldier with the bayonet on his gun everyone stands up to honour the unknown. There’s also a wreath laying ceremony by school children accompanied by the last post, very atmospheric.

Changing the guard at Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

Arlington Cemetary

JF Kennedy Memorial - The Eternal Flame

On the way, back we pause at the JFK memorial of The Eternal Flame before passing miles of graves on our walk back to the hotel. At last we can check into the Best Western IWO Jima and discover that the room is in fact a suite!!! After having luxuriated in a bath, drank several cups of coffee and lost Dave several times around the suite it’s time to search for a restaurant tonight. The route takes past a taco van that has definitely not moved in years as it’s up on bricks but still doing a trade. Several false starts and wrong turns later we stumble into Tulepo Honey, form the outside it looks empty but actually it is nearly full and buzzing. The young man serving us persuades us to have the chicken deal and yes, it is good, pear and cheese salad to start, a whole jointed chicken, potatoes and green beans to follow and pecan pie to finish. However, the chicken does remind us of Kentucky fried chicken!