Washington Monument

We did it! We got there early enough to get tickets and finally ride up the Washington Monument. There are two elevators that run up and down the entire monument, you used to be able to walk up stairs that circled up to the top but those are no longer open to the public. Apparently too many people were sneaking in chisels and taking home parts of the stones as momentos.

See where the line is and the stones change color? Construction of the monument stopped due to lack of funding and internal turbulance during the civil war. It sat as a stump for 30 years until they fundraised the money to finish it.



This is a "live cast" of Washington himself (done while he was alive.) It sits at the bottom of the memorial and "is actually what he looked like".

So then we zoomed up 500 feet to the top, and got to look out these little windows (notice the small red lights above the windows? The kids were fascinated by those.)
I gave Shayna the camera and she wanted to show you what the flashing lights look like from the inside.

That was about when I remembered I was afraid of heights, so Shayna was the official photographer for the rest of the trip. Check it out!

the White House to the north.


The Jefferson Memorial to the south


The Capitol to the east (kinda foggy that direction)


and the Lincoln Memorial to the west.

When we got back down to the ground, the kids said "that was the coolest thing! That was ssooooooo fun!!"



Here's what mom said.