#happy birthday to our meatball supreme

[lccdctour]

Day Two

Day Two of the tour began early with make your own waffles at the Hampton Inn (yum!), then we loaded the buses and headed off to Washington DC.

Our first stop of the day took us to Shanksville, PA where we visited the Flight 93 National Memorial. On September 11, 2001, the United States came under attack when four commercial airliners were hijacked and used to strike targets on the ground. We were honored to sing at the 9/11 Memorial during our 2017 NYC Tour and today we were humbled to learn about the heroic actions of the passengers and crew aboard Flight 93 as they challenged the hijackers and prevented the plane from reaching its presumed intended target of the US Capitol building or White House.

We began our visit at the Tower of Voices which was conceived as a ninety-three foot tall musical instrument holding forty wind chimes representing the forty passengers and crew. The tower provides a living memorial in sound to honor the forty through their ongoing voices - and on this windy morning, those voices provided a haunting melody which rang out across the surrounding hills.

From the tower, we moved on to the Visitors Center where we learned more about the events of that tragic day through pictures, recovered debris from the crash site, and recordings from the flight data boxes and of calls passengers made to their loved ones. We then made our way to the Memorial Plaza near the crash site where we were honored to perform for our chaperones and visitors.

After leaving the memorial, we continued our journey through the rolling hills of Pennsylvania and into the traffic-filled and construction-happy roads of Maryland & Virginia, arriving at Arlington National Cemetery just in time to board our private tram to the Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Following the solemn and moving ceremony, we presented a short concert of patriotic selections near the Tomb at the Memorial Amphitheater - a performance that none of us will soon forget.

We then continued our tram tour of the cemetery, seeing and learning about the graves of our nation’s generals, Supreme Court Justices (including the Notorious RBG), and the thousands of servicemen and servicewomen who are buried at Arlington. The tour also paused to allow our group to visit the graves of President John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jackie (and two of their children), as well as the graves of JFK’s brothers, Robert & Ted.

From Arlington, we s l o w l y made our way through the streets of downtown Washington DC, catching a glimpse of the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, and the White House en route to the Washington Marriott at the Metro Center which we’ll be calling home for the next few days. (The DC traffic also reminded us why we all live in Logansport and not in a metropolitan city.) After a bit of time to relax and refresh, we set off on foot to Carmine’s Italian Restaurant where we all enjoyed a delicious meal of spaghetti, meatballs, and chicken parmigiana and celebrated our birthday girl, Ava. (Chocolate torte - YUM!)

The evening was capped off with a leisurely stroll back to the hotel where we socialized in the lobby, swam in the hotel pool, or relaxed in our rooms.

We’re off to the White House, Smithsonian museums, and a Washington Nationals baseball game tomorrow for day three!