US Holocaust Memorial Museum, National Gallery of Art -- Washington, DC

Here is Teressa's journal entry for the day: The temperature took a dip into the 50’s, but it was a sunny dry day. We took the train to town again and got off near the Washington Monument (if anything is “near” anything in this town!) Gary had tickets for a noon entry time, but at the information desk we discovered that he inadvertently got tickets for tomorrow at noon. Tickets are free, but so many people want to go to the top of the monument that they require pre-requested tickets. The Washington Monument was awe-inspiring from the base so we admired it for a few minutes and then trucked on over to the Holocaust museum.

At the entrance to the exhibit, each of us got a data card about an actually person from the Holocaust and we were able to follow their life as we moved through the exhibit. There was so much there I would like to have read thoroughly, but it was quite crowded and fairly long, and Brian and Laura’s attention to detail isn’t as long. Nonetheless, we all had some new perspective into the horrors of the Nazi regime. We walked away wondering why people continue to repeat this hate pattern and how humanity can ever move to a higher level as a whole.

We grabbed lunch at the cafeterial next door to the the Holocaust museum, rested our feet and read awhile after eating. Then we walked to the Smithsonian Castle and watched a brief video about the Smithsonian. We have seen many of the things they showed, but it was a good presentation for making sure we hadn't missed anything important. The American History museum looked really interesting to all and it hadn’t been on our list. We were disappointed to find it closed for renovation, though, so made a quick detour into the National Gallery of Art. They have a “must see” list for those who only have an hour or so to see the museum, so we used that as our tour guide and viewed Rembrandt, Van Eyke (my favorite), Van Gogh, Monet, Cezanne, and others.

Gary spent the evening planning for the next week. Kids did some studying, and I finished "A Thousand Spendid Suns" which Janine loaned me. It was sad, Janine, to read about what the Taliban and warlords in Afghanistan did. It fit right in with our holocaust day. It was very good though.