Day 6
Our first morning in Washington DC began with a purchased breakfast at our hotel. This is the first morning we’ve had to pay for our breakfast. We gathered at the bus at 8:15 and departed the hotel at 8:30 for Ford’s Theater on 10th St. in downtown Washington.
We had a few minutes to shop on the street before going into the theater at 10 AM. We spent about 40 minutes in the museum, looking at things related to the final days of Abraham Lincoln’s life. At 10:40 we all moved to the theater and saw a one-act play on the assassination of Lincoln. It was very professional and put the assassination of Lincoln into the story of those who were involved in the theater production that day of “ My American Cousin.”
The play led right up to the moment when John Wilkes Booth snuck into the booth with President Lincoln and shot him. There was a loud gunshot at that particular moment of laughter in the play.
After the play ended, we moved across the street to the Peterson House where we saw the room where Lincoln died at 7:22 AM the next morning, April 15, 1865.
We left the Peterson House and Andrew dropped us off at the Ronald Reagan building where we had lunch at the international food court downstairs. This was an easy way for us to all stay together and yet have choices for lunch. Even though the weather was hot and humid today, we were inside for most of the day.
Our next venture was to the capital building. Andrew dropped us off in front of the Capitol and we walked up to Senator Lindsey Graham‘s office for some photos and to retrieve our Senate gallery tickets. Even though our tour was scheduled for 3:20, we were able to move our tour to an earlier time. Our tour guide was excellent! We all wore our headphones in order to hear all of the factual information he had to share with us about the building of the Capitol as well as the paintings and statues inside. We finished our tour in time to go into the Senate gallery for a few minutes. As we waited to get into the Senate gallery, Lindsey Graham walked by and stopped and spoke to many of us in our group. We watched two senators address the Senate with virtually no one on the floor of the Senate. The two senators we heard were Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin. After our tour, we had the long walk back around the Capitol to get to where we loaded the bus again.
On the drive back to our hotel in Chantilly, Virginia, we decided that we would postpone our visit of the monuments. We had planned to do an evening tour of the monuments, but the weather was threatening and thunderstorms were called for. We decided instead to wait and do the monument tour tomorrow afternoon after we finish visiting the Holocaust museum.
Several of us went straight to supper when we got back to the hotel. Some ate at Bob Evans and some ate at Longhorn Steakhouse. Since we are leaving so early tomorrow morning and the café will not be open, Rick and Carol Jo Ubered to Harris Teeter to pick up doughnuts and muffins for breakfast tomorrow morning.
Rick and Carol got back just in time for our devotion. Ben Nimmer led the devotion and did an outstanding job. He’s been preparing all week so it was a very thoughtful time of worship together.
We leave early tomorrow morning, so everyone was ready for rest tonight. God‘s been good to our group and given us many opportunities to grow together.