Pentagon Memorial & Arlington National Cemetery

after dealing w/all the moving nonsense we could possibly handle in dreary, rainy weather, the sun finally came out and we wandered out into our new neighborhood on sat afternoon.

our original plan was to walk to arlington national cemetery, but as it turns out, we live on the opposite side of the visitor entrance.

so instead we routed ourselves over to the pentagon memorial.

it's simple, but really nice.

the memorial sits on the side of the building where it was hit (if you look closely in the pic below, you can see the different colors on the wall), and consists of a series of benches w/water running beneath each one like its own little fountain.

each bench is dedicated to a victim, and laid out by birth year.

married couples that died are marked by their partner's name in the water under the bench of their spouse.

benches that point towards the pentagon designate those that died there. benches that point away designate those that died on the plane.

after taking some time to walk around and read some names, todd and i walked across the parking lot to the metro to catch a ride to arlington national cemetery.

this might be one of the nicest places in the DC area.

yes, it's filled w/hundreds of dead people and would be a bad place to be if a zombie apocalypse were to ever happen...

but it's quiet and peaceful and has beautiful grounds to walk thru.
while we were there, we watched the changing of the guards at the tomb of the unknowns and a flag lowering ceremony.
we ended the day w/some drinks and indian food, a couple of errands, and measuring out our space to see what furniture we could bring from home.

thankfully, everything seemed to be working when we got there...

(top to bottom, L to R: unpacking mess; pentagon memorial entrance; pentagon memorial; friendly reminder at the entrance to arlington national cemetery; walking into the cemetery; perfect lines of headstones; JFK gravesite; view of DC from arlington house; pillars of arlington house; flowers in restored garden originally planted by mrs. robert e. lee; flower covered roof at the old amphitheater; memorial amphitheater; tomb of the unknowns; changing of the soldiers; lowering of the flag; view along crook walk going east from the memorial amphitheater)