YC Tour - Day 4

(I apologize for this blog being written a day late. We’ve been very busy!)

Saturday began as monument day. We were dropped off at the Washington Monument and started from there. The singers that hadn’t been to Washington D.C. were vey quickly in awe of the beauty of the monuments they could see while driving in. Obviously major picture taking started! From the Washington we headed to the World War II Monument. On the way there the reflecting pool had no water. It is undergoing a major renovation so it is all dirt and construction materials. Since our tour shirts we were wearing show the reflection of the Washington Monument in the pool we felt we had it covered!

At the World War II Memorial, Mrs. Treadway challenged some of the singers to find Kilroy somewhere and to find the areas representing Guam and New Guinea where her Grandfather served. David and Taylor found Kilroy and I believe Nathan found New Guinea and Guam. There were many WWII veterans there as part of an Honor Flight. We encouraged the singers to started discussions with them and thank them for their service. Once they saw how easy it was to approach them, they were more comfortable doing it. Once you acknowledged a veteran and asked where they served the stories came out very quickly. The men and women were eager to share and some of our singers had their pictures taken with some. Very moving for most everyone.

On to the Lincoln Memorial. Mrs. Treadway again challenged the kids to find a mistake in one of the speeches engraved in the wall. Caitlyn was the first to find it. There is the word “future” where the “f” was mistakenly etched in stone as an “e” then corrected. Some of the girls were testing Mrs. Treadway on how much of the Gettysburg Address she could recite without looking at the speech on the wall. Brittany, having not been to D.C. was very impressed with the size of the Lincoln statue.

Something we found that most didn’t know was there is on the top step of the second landing of steps is words engraved in the stone commemorating where Martin Luther King stood to make his “I Have A Dream” speech. The Martin Luther King Memorial is under construction and we hope to see a little of that another day. Julia counted the steps we climbed at the Lincoln Memorial…58! At the bottom of the steps we took a group picture, first facing front and then one with backs turned so you could see our tour shirt design. We emailed to Charlie, an alumni, who designed it for us.

On to the Korean War Memorial. As we walked through the memorials, Mrs. Treadway had a sightseeing guide that Mrs. Fritz lent to her. She read the short description of each monument and its meaning before the singers explored. It seemed to help them understand some of the reasoning behind the designs especially with the Korean War Memorial depicting the 38th parallel.

From there we went to the Vietnam Memorial and walk alongside the wall. Zoe had a wonderful perspective. She said that in school they read about the number of people who died in this war and it just seems like a number…then you come here and see all of the names and realize what that number really is and it is overwhelming.

Off to lunch at the Old Post Office building which was a pretty good hike! All told we think we walked four miles today. At the post office we went up into the clock tower to get a great 360 view of the city. They could see the Basilica they would be singing at far in the distance. Lunch and a little souvenir shopping followed. We tried to get into the National Archives next but the security line was very long and we had to watch our time because of the show later, so we skipped that for now. We found a sculpture garden that had very interesting works of art and a large pond with fountain. Mrs. Ator and Mrs. Treadway explored the art including a large silver metal plated tree, an oversized typewriter eraser (remember those?), a play on Rodin’s “thinker” in cricket form and a four sided pyramid. We came back to the pond to find everyone sitting around the pond with their feet in the water. Seemed to be what all the tourists were doing so we joined in. It was a very warm day and we had done so much walking that it felt VERY GOOD!

Back to the bus to go to the hotel to get ready for “Wicked” I must say these young people know how to dress up. They all looked so fine! Ryan was the expert on tie tying sported his full Windsor! Once we got the Kennedy Center, we walked through the Hall of States and then went to the outdoor deck on the top level and viewed the city! Again, such a beautiful sight. Then the show! It goes without saying how good the show was. There was however a couple singers, Nikki and Nathan, that don’t think they will ever look at “The Wizard of Oz” the same again!

Following the show we got back pretty late. Such a long day but well worth it!

 

Posted on Tuesday, June 21, 2011

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