42 hours in the car was definitely not the highlight of my week long travels to Washington, D.C. However, the experience I had outweighs the grueling rounds of the letter game.

I was traveling with my mom, stepdad and little brother.  After an 18-hour drive, we checked into the hotel and went our separate ways. Our first stop was the U.S. capitol and the surrounding monuments and memorials. We went to the Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, the Korean War Memorial, and the Washington Monument.

The seemingly endless walking from place to place was not ideal, but in the moonlight, the memorials glowed perfectly. The reflective pool below the Washington Memorial seemed to capture a flawless scene in front of a purple sky. This was definitely a great start to an even better future.

On day 2 of our D.C. experience we went to Arlington National Cemetery, a cemetery of

hundreds of thousands of fallen soldiers. The area stretches over 600 acres. Seeing all those gravesites, aware of how each and every one holds a person who died for this country truly shone a light on my perspective of the military.

This location is also where John F Kennedy and his family are buried. The grave site is quiet and peaceful as a small fire lights up JFK’s burial plot. Another experience at Arlington was when my mom and I witnessed the changing of the guards. Everybody had to remain silent and respectful, or else the guard would yell and scare the daylights out of you.

They next day, we visited the National Museum of the Marine Corps. My stepdad Josh served in the Marines and wanted to check this place out. We  walked through the whole facility for hours. The museum had sections from the Cold War, which was freezing cold and windy, as well as another section from the Vietnam War, which was humid and damp. They had loud speakers that boomed and the ground shook from underneath me.

These simulations made visitors feel like they were legitimately in the wars. It is an interesting and underrated museum that I highly recommend checking out if you’re ever in the area.

Day 4 was a rather relaxing day after all our previous walking. I saw the ocean for the first time, but only for a few short minutes. After arriving at the Maryland National Seashore, we got

kicked out a short while later due to preparations for Hurricane Florence.

As a second attempt to get a better look at the Atlantic, we went to Ocean City, MD, which is, in a sense, the Wisconsin Dells of Maryland. The rides were all closed for the same reasons, but the beach was open to the public.

We swam for hours and got burned to a crisp, but it was definitely one of my favorite experiences of my trip to Maryland.

To end the trip. we had a free day to explore D.C. My mom and I went to the Holocaust Museum, which was silent and thick with tension. You could hear a pin drop inside a room with hundreds of people. The museum had real artifacts from the Holocaust, like shoes and hair. It also showed clips of starving Jews in concentration camps. Afterwards, there was a dim room lit up with candles as a memorial to the millions of innocent who were killed in this genocide.  This museum is depressing, but leaves a powerful impression.

My trip to the District of Columbia was memorable, I will never forget the places I saw and people I met throughout the trip.  If you have not been to our nation’s capital, you should make a point to get there soon.  And remember to pack comfortable shoes!