Mr Eklund

2018 KJHS Washington DC Trip – Day One – June 10, 2018

 

6:15am   It was an early start today. When I pulled into the parking lot at KJHS I was pleasantly surprised to see that our bus was already there, waiting for us. That is a much more enjoyable way to start than the time our driver got lost trying to find the old campus.  Thank goodness for GPS. It was a pretty new bus that had outdoor lights and a lighted cargo bay, pretty handy since all of the school lights were off.  Everyone arrived and we were out of the parking lot right on-time.

 

The drive to the airport was a buzz with excitement although there were  a number of students sound asleep before we even hit the freeway.  Southwest had our group boarding passes ready and check our bags quickly, then it was on to security. Security was surprisingly fast…the first time. Unfortunately,  four students had to go back out, dump their water bottles and go through security again and the second time through the line was a lot longer. Oh well,  that’s why we leave so early, to have time to take care of the glitches.

 

On to the departure gate. For the first time in a very long time we were not all the way out at the last gates. The Southwest agents were great. They let us all board together as a group which is where we are at the moment….37,000 feet on our way to our first stop….Dallas, Texas.

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6:00pm  (on east coast time now) The Southwest flight crew could not be nicer.  We got to Dallas about 30 minutes early.  We didn’t have to change planes which meant our 60 minute layover turned in to 90 minutes but everybody was getting along.  Great  There was a bit of weather in Baltimore so instead of arriving early we were a few minutes late but the skies didn’t open up until we got to baggage claim. Boy did they open up.  It is pouring.

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I heard the United Flight was a little bit late so I think they missed the Udvar-Hazy Museum (the Air & Space Museum at Dulles) and both buses are now on their way to dinner at Union Station. Pizzeria Uno….good pizza and salad. We are hoping this storm will move on by the time we finish dinner.

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9:40pm Dinner was a little bit delayed but the pizza and pasta was quite good and the rain had stopped before we finished eating.  Tonight we visited the “Big Three”, The Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam Wall and the Korean War Memorial. “The Wall” is a very simple yet very powerful memorial. Almost like a very wide triangle, with names of all the soldiers killed and missing during the Vietnam conflict. Over 58,300 names of American soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice to preserve our freedom.   One of our group was able to find a family member whose name is engraved on the wall.  Really makes the memorial personal when it touch someone you knew or was related too.   In addition to The Wall,  the Vietnam Memorial also features two  other statues. One of them salutes the women who served as nurses. The other is the recently refurbished statue of three soldiers.   Together the three parts of this memorial create quite an impressive display of courage and dedication.

 

11:15pm  Next, was the Lincoln Memorial. What an inspiring sight   So beautiful, especially at night and tonight we had a bonus since there was a high school chorus group n tour who sang the National Anthem, God Bless America  and couple of other numbers at both the Lincoln and at The Wall.  Sent chills down your spine.  Quite inspirational to hear these patriotic songs at this beautiful memorial, especially looking across the reflecting pool at the Washington Monument and the Capitol beyond.  I’ve been here a dozen times and it still moves me.

 

Our last stop of the day is the Korean War Memorial. With all the references to Korea in the news these days the students were quite interested in the conflict that divided the country in the first place. The sixteen full six bronze statues of soldiers on patrol through the rice paddies almost makes you feel like you were there. Looking into their eyes you can practically feel the terror of a night patrol.

 

After a long day, it is time to head to our hotel. Unloading the bus is always such fun but they did a great job tonight. Everyone got their luggage, room keys and were off to their rooms before a quick meeting to go over tomorrow’s plans. Bed checks at 10:30ish and time to hit the hay.  That is it for today.  Yak at cha tomorrow.

Mr. Eklund

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2018 KJHS Washington DC Trip – Day Two – June 11, 2018

 

6:22am   Looks like it is going to be a very interesting week. It rained heavy last night, including over 5 inches in Cherry Hill, New Jersey which is where we will be staying Thursday night.   I think our hotel is fine but hopefully the bus will not need an oil change because the Jiffy Lube was a bit flooded on the news this morning. Supposed to rain off and on today but not as heavy as last night or during the drive in from Baltimore. I addition to the weather, the entire town is going a bit hockey crazy. Since the Washington Capitals won the Stanley Cup, for the first time ever, they are having the victory parade through downtown Washington DC tomorrow.  Fortunately, we will be at Mount Vernon in the morning so we should miss the traffic but that’s for another day….let’s see what is up for today.

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Wake up calls were set for 6:00am, with breakfast at 7:00am in the hotel.  I like this hotel because breakfast is in the same place as our meeting room last night, downstairs, away from the rest of the hotel guests so we can laugh and have fun without worrying about disturbing the other guests.  After breakfast we will head into the city with our first stop, getting our pictures taken.  This is a nice group photo on the steps of the Ulysses S Grant Memorial with the Capitol building in the background.  If you have been in my classroom, this is the big photo hanging on the wall by the door. They will are suitable for framing and will be ready in a week or two. I will come down to school to hang out and pass them out when they are ready. They are included in the price of the trip so please plan on stopping by to pick yours up. I will send out an email with date and time as soon as I have them available.

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10:30pm  Change of plans.  Well, we were all lined up (by height) as are four other schools but here come a whole bus load of little old ladies from Texas, the Lady Singers of Texas I believe they were called, and they set themselves up in the middle of our photo shoot site and start singing...and singing…and singing.  And, to paraphrase Don McClane,  the singing ladies refused to yield. As more schools showed up and the various group leaders were getting hostile we decided it was more important to keep our appointment time at the Capitol and bailed on the photo for now. 

 

I guess since everyone was down waiting to get there picture taken there was NO wait at security (that never happens).  We wizzed right in and had time to check out the really cool exhibit on Congress and the separation of powers. What an excellent exhibit, very fitting for the environment that we are living in today.  It had lots of political cartoons with simple yet complete and interesting explanations.  Loved this new exhibit.  Then it was time for our tour. It starts off with an excellent film about E Pluribus Unum or Out of Many…One.  Great film.  I would like to show it in class but I guess they want us to keep coming back so it can only be seen on the tour.  

 

The tour was great. We had two fantastic guides, the sound system all worked properly and the refurbishment inside the dome has been completed.  The Capitol looks so beautiful.  The entire dome has been cleaned, refurbished and refinished inside and out. It hasn’t looked this nice since it was first completed in the mid eighteen hundreds.  Both of the guides were great with wonderful stories. The inside of the dome is absolutely beautiful.  This is also where the students could check out the original painting of the portraits I gave everyone on the flight to DC (It appears on the back of the two dollar bill. Ask your student to tell you what event it depicts.) 

.After the tours we all met up in the House of Representatives.  Thank you so much to Jared Huffman’s office for setting us up with the tours and for the gallery passes.

Since the House was not in session today I was able to teach a lesson about what they were viewing. I, along with the help of a Capitol guard, described the room and how it and are representatives work (well, how they are supposed to work anyway.) 

 

After the Capitol tour, it is time to check out Washington’s newest memorial…the Disabled American Veterans Memorial.  This is the ultra cool one I was talking about at our pre-departure meeting where the water is on fire. Not only was it working today but it looked fantastic, with flames roiling over the bubbling water in the center of the infinity pool. Way cool, er, hot, well, you know what I mean.

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Next up, time for lunch. Today we are going back to Union Station but not to last nights pizza place but to the food court on the bottom floor. Frankly, this place can be worrisome because it is usually unbelievably crowded but not today. There’s few lines, a number of new restaurants and plenty of places to sit.  A win, win, win! Lots of choices for food as well from Auntie Anne’s pretzels, burgers, Philly Cheesesteaks, Teriyaki Chicken, Bojangles Fried Chicken or even Haagen Daas ice cream. Plenty to choose from. Personally, I tried the Philly Cheese Steak at one of the new restaurants and, while not truly authentic (no Cheese Whiz) it was truly tasty!

 

After lunch it is time for our rescheduled picture. This time, no crowds, no other schools (until we were almost done) and no singing groups.  Much better than this morning.  I should have the photos back in a week or two. I will come down to school and hang out in front for a couple of hours passing them out as well as a couple other goodies I picked up along the way for you. These are included in the price of your trip so be sure to pick yours up. I will send you an email with the date and time as soon as I get the photos. 

 

Next its time to do some souvenir shopping.  Its funny, every year seems to be a different trend. This seems to be the year of the bucket hat. Sure there were some hooded sweatshirts but lots more bucket hats. Just letting you know what to expect.

 

Our next stop is the Newseum.  This is my 13thtrip to DC and what makes it so great for me is that every year, even if you go to the same place as last year, you can count on a lot of it being different. For example, I was looking forward to the exhibit on rock music and protests and the 4-D film only to discover that both exhibits had been “retired.”  That may have been disappointing but instead the exhibits on the FBI most wanted and Pulitzer Prize winning photographs were fantastic.  This is one of those museums that you could easily spend an entire day touring and still barely scratch the surface on all the things to see and do. I wonder what your student liked about this one?  Maybe you should ask them!

 

Next up it’s the World War II Memorial.  Getting to this museum is a challenge.  Unfortunately, while we were in the Newseum we noticed a massive police response to something happening up the street. We have no idea what the issue is but we do know the entire street is blocked off and we have to take a very convoluted route to get  around the situation. Once we get to the memorial, the sky is looking pretty ominous. The wind is picking up, the clouds are thickening and getting darker and we are pretty sure we are about to have a downpour.  Fortunately, we were wrong. No rain just a tour through a beautiful site honoring those who served in battle as well as on the home front during World War II.  I didn’t see a whole lot of pictures being taken here so I encourage you to search out online more details about this memorial. The amount of symbolism here is amazing and very interesting. Check it out and be sure to ask if your student found the Kilroy Was Here location and what it means.

 

From here we walk over to the Martin Luther King Memorial.  During the walk over we had a loud crack off to our right. Turns out a tree branch simply broke and fell out of the tree. The sound was much louder than would have been expected for the size of the branch but fortunately we were  far enough away on the sidewalk that it was no threat but it sure made us jump.

 

The Dr Martin Luther King Memorial is designed to look like a stone mountain with a big chunk cut out of the center. On the front of that center piece is a giant carving of Dr King. Extending out from either side of the mountains are a series of quotes from various King speeches carved into the walls.  The statue itself looks out across the  tidal basin at the Jefferson Memorial on the far side. 

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Our next stop is the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial.  This is a series of outdoor “rooms”. Each room depicts one of  FDR’s terms as our president. Some of the things depicted include bread lines and Fire Side Chats, his wife Eleanor, his scotty dog, and the most controversial part, him in a wheelchair. It is amazing to think that most Americans had no idea he was in a wheelchair, however we need to remember there was no television yet. 

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As we are about to head off to dinner we find out what was up with the earlier police incident. It seems there was a shooting in the Department of Justice. We had almost no details but I asked everyone to text or call home to let you know we were fine. On the way to dinner, our bus driver James happens to start singing Take Me Home Country Roads so we all did a little singing on the way to dinner.   A little John Denver, Flo Rida and Carly Rae Jepson before we arrive at dinner. Tonight we dined at restaurant kinda like Panera whose name escapes me and since I am too tired to go look it up that is a sign I need to get some sleep.  I will finish up a few details in the morning but since it is already 1:00am its already morning.  See you on Wednesday, well, electronically anyway.

Mr Eklund

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2018 KJHS Washington DC Trip – Day Three – June 12, 2018

 

 

6:45am  Good morning! Most days I am up before the alarm and raring to go but I have to admit, when that alarm went off at 5:00 am today I seriously considered skipping my morning workout and sleeping that extra hours but hey, I was already up so….well, enough about me.  Let me finish up with last night. After dinner it was time to call it a day and head back to the hotel. We met downstairs and had a great time playing a little trivia, tossing out prizes, and going over the details of today. I also had the chance to tell the story about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. We will be going to Ford’s Theater today and we didn’t get one of the ranger talks so I told the story instead (that’s fine since you never know how the ranger will be…some are great storytellers, some, well, let’s just say storytelling isn’t their strength.)

 

Our first stop this morning is going to be George Washington’s home, Mount Vernon.

 

10:45pm  They have really streamlined the process here and for the first time ever they let you take pictures inside of his house.  What a nice surprise.  In addition to running the army and later our government, the General continued to manage the construction and expansion of his home. In addition to the house, he had over 8,000 acres, produced lots of tobacco and pig products (BACON!) and operated the largest whiskey distillery in the country. In addition to touring the house we had the option of visiting the rest of the grounds including the farm as well as the tomb of George and Martha Washington. 

 

At the visitors center, most of us saw the movie that told the story of the Revolutionary War and it even snowed inside the theater. This has not been working the past couple of years so this was a nice treat.  They were also processing some of the farms harvested wheat. Some even went all the way down to wharf and learned about the salting of fish and how food was provided for the slaves.  There was quite a variety of things to learn about. We even learned that they were able to catch and sell so much fish that it paid half the mortgage every year.  

 

Next it was time for lunch at L,Enfant Plaza. This is a rather strangely laid out mall that had some wonderful and different food.  Personally I loved the lamb falafel but it sounds like I should try the Mediterranean place next year. Everyone who went there raved about how good the food was. I was happy to see that some of the kids ventured out of the safe Subway and Taco Bell food choices.

 

After lunch we made our way back across the city. What a mess. The parade for the Washington Capitals was over but there were fans wearing red CAPS championship shirts, blocked streets and closed down roads everywhere.  Even our guide was impressed with how fantastic our driver was a making his way in and around to get us to the White House.  I’m not a CAPS fan but it was sure neat to see how excited everyone was everywhere you looked.

 

Fortunately we don’t have to walk to far to the front of the White House .  We all pose for some pictures in front of the White House, a lot of people took their own photos but then we realized that, due to the traffic mess, the buses were not going to be able to drive us to Ford’s Theater because of the CAPS fans. The jovial mood was contagious.  Theater so we are going to have to walk.  It is a bit of a hike but it was kind of fun since the entire route was crawling  with hockey fans.  We are walking fast for a number of blocks but we make it right on time for our appointment to visit the museum and walk through the theater. 

 

The museum has been added underneath the original theater. It has only been open a few years and it is so well done. There are a number of exhibits that trace the history of that terrible night Mr. Lincoln was assassinated.  They have the gun Mr Booth used as well as a number of neat short films and other exhibits explaining all the various parts of the event.  

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Peterson House is directly across from the theater. The doctors said Mr Lincoln would not survive a carriage ride to the White House so they took him to the Peterson House to live out his final hours.  He passed away the next morning. Unfortunately, Peterson House is closed for refurbishing but we could go into the new museum that has been added when they purchased the building next door.  This is a four story museum where you start by taking an elevator to the top then working your way down the stairs with exhibits on every floor. One of the coolest things about this is the stairs wrap around a giant , four story stack of books about Abraham Lincoln.  On the top floor there is a replica of the funeral car as well as Mr Lincolns flag draped casket.  There is also a mock up of the barn where John Wilkes Booth was trapped. He refused to surrender so they set the barn on fire. They wanted to take him alive so he could be put on trial but he refused to give up. Eventually they decided to try and wound him but Booth was accidently shot in the neck. They drug him out of the barn and roughly three hours later he passed away on the farmhouse porch. If you want a great read check out Manhunt or the book Chasing Lincolns Killer both written by James L Swanson.  A great movie about this event is called The Conspirators. I believe you can find this on Netflix or Amazon Prime.  This one is very well done, pretty accurate historically and definitely worth watching.

 

From here, we head over to Arlington to check out the Air Force Memorial. This memorial is a lovely location, overlooking the Pentagon with a fantastic view of Washington, DC. The memorial feature three stainless steel spires intended to symbolize three jets going up and splitting off from each other. Interesting fact, this monument was built after the September 11thattacks and is placed directly in the flight path of the jet that crashed into the Pentagon. With that in mind we head down the hill to the 9/11 memorial.  This is a very interesting site. This memorial features a bench and reflecting pool for every person killed in this event. The benches are placed in alignment with the flight path facing in opposite directions depending if the person died in n the plane or in the pentagon. It was nice to see our kids so well behaved and appropriate during the entire visit.  Thank you for raising such polite kids Kudos to you mom and dad.

 

Time to eat again. The city is still flooded with CAPS fans so maneuvering the buses  around is still challenging but it did give us a chance to see a little bit of  more of the city. We were able to check out the Australian Embassy as well as the Embassy of Tunisia after we couldn’t get over to make a turn and had to go many blocks to make it back to the desired location, which was a restaurant called was G Street Food. As we walked in I realized we had been to this restaurant before and it was quite tasty. We had spaghetti and meatballs, a couple other types of pasta, chicken parmasen, fresh steamed broccoli and salad.  Yummy Italian food hit the spot.

 

After diner we head over to the Jefferson Memorial. This site could really use an overhaul.  While the statue of Jefferson still looks great in the center of the dome, the exterior of the dome is looking pretty shabby. The roof looks like it I covered  in mold while the cement down at the base looks full of Petaluma sized potholes. It was looking so sad I was thinking about donating some money if they develop a fundraiser to refurbish this site.  Jefferson deserves better. 

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After the Jefferson we have time for one more fun stop tonight so head on over to the Einstein Statue. We all climbed up in his lap and took a number of photos. Its amazing how many people we were able to get in his lap for a picture.  Time to call it a day. We get back on the bus and crank up the tines. On my bus we started off with Journey which lad into One Direction, Elton John and Tupac while on the other bus, John Denver seemed to be the big hit of the night.

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Back at the hotel we continue the fun. I had hoped off the bus around the corner and picked up five boxes of ...........................................okay….can’t stay awake any longer…will finish tomorrow

 

6:24am -  Anyway, we finished off the evening with a rousing good time. I jumped off the bus around the corner from the hotel and picked up ice cream for everyone.  There was some kind of business meeting going on around the corner from us and they were so jealous.  We had fun going over our day today and the upcoming stuff for tomorrow. We passed around thank you cards for Dave and Dale since it is our last day in DC on Wednesday. And we had a great time asking trivia questions, tossing out prizes and having a generally fun end to the day. 

Mr Eklund

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2018 KJHS Washington DC Trip – Day Four – June 13, 2018

 

10:50pm  Ahhhhh, it’s Wednesday.  That means bacon for breakfast and the Twilight tattoo! What a great day.  Let me walk you through our day.  Actually, let me back up to something that happened yesterday first since it played directly into the start of the day today. Yesterday we had an entire room of four boys ignore their wake up call and didn’t get out of bed until I came and knocked on their door at departure time. Not a great way to start the day so at our meeting last night I reminded everyone how wake up calls work (there’s no one there when you pick up the phone) and told every one to set a back up alarm on their cell phones because you never know when there might be a missed wake up call.  Sure enough, this morning the phone system was out and no one got a wake up call. Fortunately they listened to me and no one was late for breakfast let alone late for the bus.  Yeah!

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This morning our first site is Arlington National Cemetery. I am glad it is first because it is a bit of an uphill hike the entire way in. We went up to the John F Kennedy gravesite where you can see the eternal flame burning bright. We also noticed there are four people buried there. We know JFK and Jackie but who are the other two? Ask your student. (Shhhhhhh…the answer is two babies that Jackie had that didn’t survive).  There are also two other Kennedy’s buried nearby, Robert and Teddy as well as a marker but no body for the other brother Joe, whose plane went down in the Atlantic during World War II.  There is something different about RFK and Teddy’s graves, do you know what they have that no other gravesite has in Arlington?  They are the only wooden gravestones (crosses) on the property.

 

We also watched a changing of the guard ceremony as well as a wreath laying at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  It is quite impressive to watch . The precision and detail involved is just amazing. These guys (and gals although it was all men today)are in about as perfect shape the human body can be in. I mean, seriously, they don’t even sweat despite the heat, humidity and wool uniforms.   I also had a little lesson about America’s most decorated hero ever…Audie L Murphy.  Every medal we have to offer and he earns them all before he turns 22 years old. Definitely someone to look up to and admire.  Definitely a great role model.

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After Arlington, we head over to the African American Museum.  This museum just opened a year ago and it is still the toughest ticket in town and for good reason. This place is incredible and it was absolutely packed! The four underground level trace the history of African’s in America from the slave trade in Africa to the founding of America through slavery and the Civil War, reconstruction, sharecropping, Jim Crow, the KKK, the Civil Rights movement all the way up to Black Lives Matter. You cannot help but be moved when touring through this exhibit. There is so much here you could easily spend an entire week here and still not see everything. And that’s just the underground floors. There are still four more floors above ground with all kinds exhibits from Chuck Berry’s Guitar and Cherry Red Cadillac to Muhammad Ali’s boxing gloves and statutes of tennis greats Venus and Serena Williams.  Be sure to ask your student what they found interesting in this museum.

 

Time for lunch. Today we are going to the worlds largest office building, the Ronald Regan World trade Center. This office building is big it has its own food court (just like a mall) with a large number of choices.  Everyone made their pick and ate their lunch quickly so we could head out to the Smithsonian Museums.  For today’s adventure each chaperone and their group would decide for themselves how they were going to spend their time.  The day would start at the American History Museum and finish about four hours later at the Air & Space Museum. In between there are a number of other choices such as the Smithsonian Castle, The Natural History, the sculpture garden, and a number of art museums.  My group chose to simply split their time between the beginning and ending museums and skipping the rest.  In the American History museum we checked out exhibits on America at War, politics and voting, Kermit the Frog, and the Batmobile (Yes, the real Batmobile from the 1989 movie just to name a few.  At the Air & Space Museum where we checked out a lunar landing module, tried to land an Airbus, flew in a flight simulator, touched a moon rock and/or plenty of other things to see and do.  Since each person’s experience would be totally different you will need to ask you student what they did   today 

 

After the Smithsonian’s we make our way over to the Pentagon City mall for dinner. Again a food court with lots of choices………………

11:47pm……I can barely keep my eyes open (31,963 steps on my fitbit today) I will post this much now and finish it up in the morning. 

Thanks for your patience.
Mike Eklund

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DAY FOUR PART TWO

8:15am ….Sorry about that. I kept nodding off as I was writing last night. Right now we are on the bus on the way to Gettysburg but let me finish up yesterday’s recap. Dinner. The Pentagon City Mall. This is a big shopping mall with a huge food court right down the street from the Pentagon. We are on our way to the Twilight Tattoo and the early arrivers get nice bleacher seats instead of sitting on the grass so we get our food to go. There are lots of good choices here and most students choose something fairly healthy although there was one girl who had a dinner of a cupcake and some kind of shake. Personally, I went to a new salad place called Honey Grow. It was really good although the spicy cashews in the salad were a bit too spicy for my taste. Everyone ate on the bus and we were a bit worried about the bomb detection dog that inspected as we entered Fort Meyer might get a bit hungry.  Our tactic paid off, despite arriving a little bit later than we usually do we did get an entire section of the bleachers to ourselves. 

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As for the Twilight Tattoo, my O’ my, what a fantastic show.  Every year the show is a little bit different and this year was no exception. I was chatting with our escort on the way in and he mentioned it was an extra special show because 1) it was the Army’s 243rdbirthday and 2) the Master General of the Army would be attending. And 3) the show was going to be a bit longer than usual as well.   YEAH! It’s a win for us and what a show. They mixed things up perfectly. The singers at the start opened with Taylor Swift and they never looked back. They shot off more ammunition than I have ever heard in this show with Howitzers, cannons, machine guns , and rifles shooting at various points throughout the show. They even simulation a battle with all the weapons being fired in front, behind and to the sides of us as well. They have not done this before but I must say it was very realistic sounding. Pretty exciting to behold. 

 

After the show it was quite a thrill to see the kids interacting with the soldiers. They were all clamoring to pose with this one soldier with  impressive “guns”, not the shooting kind but the biceps! He was having a great time flexing for the photos. The other big draw was posing with members of the Army drill team with their bayonets fixed rifles pointing menacingly. 

 

Once the parade grounds were just about empty, we have time for one last stop before heading back to the hotel. This one is real easy because the exit from Ft Meyer is right around the corner from the Marine Corps Memorial. This memorial is a giant statue reenacting that famous photo of the Marines raising the American Flag at Mount Saribachi on Iwo Jima during World War II. A beautiful monument lit up nicely against the very dark night sky. 

 

Back on the bus we do a little singing before a short meeting at the hotel. Since this is our last night in DC instructions were given about packing with reminders to get ALL of their stuff together, especially charge cords, before we leave in the morning.

And with that, we call an end to very, very long but incredible day.

Mr Eklund

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2018 KJHS DC Trip – Day Five – Thursday – June 14th

 

3:00pm  Moving day! Its always hectic getting up and moving out of the hotel in the morning, especially after four tiring days but the students all did great this morning. We were up, ate breakfast, inspected rooms and on the bus right on time and it was a good thing too because traffic was pretty heavy. Fortunately, the heavy part didn’t last too long and we arrived in Gettysburg early enough that we didn’t have to run from the bus to the theater. It was a nice way to start the day.

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Our visit to Gettysburg starts with a fantastic film that gives an overview of the entire Gettysburg experience.  Narrated by Morgan Freeman I so wish they would make it available for sale. I would definitely buy it to show in class (just like the Mount Vernon welcome video that I show in class now).  It traces through the entire three day battle as well as the cemetery dedication and the Gettysburg Address. After the film, we go up to the Cyclorama which is the largest painting in North America. The painting is circular and depicts the third day of the battle. Using light and sounds they make this picture come alive.  Pretty cool.  After the film we head downstairs where there is a wonderful museum as well as one of the best gift shops around. 

 

Next we have a professional, licensed battlefield hop on each bus and take us on a trip through town and around the entire battlefield.  Sometimes he would describe what we were seeing from the bus windows, other times we got off and he showed and explained things up close. We learned how to identify different types of artillery, how to load and fire a cannon, and what type of artillery you would use for a particular purpose. We got out and tried out a small version of Pettigrew ‘s or Pickett’s Charge. Did you know, when those lines of soldiers came into battle one line right behind the other they did this so the soldiers in the back could use the shoulders of the men in the front line to steady their rifles. That means the rifles would fire directly next to the ear of the lot of deafness among those men?  We also went up to Little Round Top and our students got a real clear picture of how important holding the high ground was to winning a battle.  Our guides were fantastic. These guys know everything there is to know about the battles and are really good at sharing their passion.  What a great tour.

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After cruising the battlefield, it is time for lunch. My favorite meal of the trip at the Dobbin House.  The house was built in 1776 for Mister Dobbin. He was a preacher who was brought to the area to lead a church. He and his first wife had nine children. After she passed away, he and his new wife had ten more kids. Can you imagine having 19 children?  Yikes! The Dobbin house was also where the Underground Railroad actually began. We had a chance to view the actual spaces where they would hide escaping slaves during the daytime before they continued their journey at night.  The stories were cool but the best part of this stop is the food. They make it all themselves from the fresh bread to the chocolate cake from scratch.  I don’t know how they make the bread so soft but the sandwich literally melts in your mouth.  I am so glad I found this place. Most tour groups go to the awful buffet up the street. I had gone there on my first trip and vowed never to return. I’d rather eat at McDonalds or KFC rather than go there again.

 

6:00pm    Now we are on the bus on our way to Philadelphia. We stopped at Valley Forge to try and check out where George Washington and the Continental Army. Unfortunately the visitor’s center closed about 15 minutes before we arrived. It wasn’t in the schedule but we thought we would give it a try. We did take the opportunity to drive through and checked the place out from the bus.  The area was much bigger than I thought.  Considering the miserable conditions they were dealing with it was surprising to see how spread apart the groups of soldiers were, not to mention there were lush, tall green grass everywhere and when Washington was there is freezing cold with lots of snow.

 

 And now, we are experiencing the horrible, going into Philadelphia, evening traffic.  I honestly don’t know how people can stand sitting horrendous traffic every afternoon. I would quit and find another job or move so I wouldn’t have such a long drive. Stop and Go for about 30 minutes so far, driver estimates at least another 45 minutes of this. Ugh! And that’s even taking James’ double secret, back roads .

 

10:30pm  Traffic was like the Novato Narrows on Friday on a holiday weekend. Wow! Then we got kinda lost by going around to the wrong side of the complex. I had to call the restaurant three times extending the late time we would arrive but they could not have been nicer or more accommodating.  We went to a restaurant called Bahama Breeze.  The menu choices we had were a bit limited (but the usually are for groups like this) but the food tasted really great. The service was excellent and they were so glad we came. Makes you feel good when the workers are truly happy to see you.

 

After dinner it’s a short hop over to the hotel. We are staying at a new place in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. It s just across the river from Philadelphia so it should be a quicker morning than making our way over from the Philly hotel we have stayed at in the past which always seemed to be under major construction. It has been a very good but very long day. I am hoping to get to bed before midnight today.  Since we will be traveling home tomorrow, unless I have internet access on the plane, I probably will not post Friday’s blog until Saturday.

Nighty Nite!

Mr Eklund

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2018 KJHS DC Trip – Day Six – Friday – June 15th

 

6:00am Good Morning from Philadelphia. Wake up calls were fifteen minutes ago. Been watching the news this morning and there is an overturned big rig on our route into the city. Hopefully they will have it cleared by the time we leave. Could be an interesting start to the day.

 

9:25pm  We are sitting onboard the aircraft for our flight home, which was scheduled for 8:56pm. The just announced that due to Air Traffic Control clearance we will not be leaving until after 10:00pm.  Oh well, it’s a better day than the truck driver this morning had. That overturned big rig was at the end of the bridge we were supposed to take into the city this morning but fortunately we had seen it on the news and took another bridge instead.  This meant we arrived to meet our guides right on time. As for that overturned big rig, it was still there as of 1:30pm because they had to unload it before they could turn it right side up. You could actually see the crash from our drop off location this morning. Glad we took the other bridge.

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We had two fabulous guides in Old Philadelphia today. My group was with Ellen while Ms Tescallo’s group toured with Bill.  Essentially the tours are the same but I will be writing about Ellen’s tour so there may be some things that differ between the two groups. Ellen took us to a lot of places that we didn’t necessarily have on the schedule or go inside of, but she was a great storyteller and involved the kids in all of her stories.

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Our first stop was to learn about the Philadelphia Mint.  They make coin money at the mint here. Unfortunately they were not giving out free samples today nor could we have a tour but Ellen did a great job explaining that the make coin money at Philadelphia and Denver while the print bills in Washington DC as well as Dallas. She didn’t mention this but if I am not mistaken they print/coin specialty items as the mint in San Francisco.  From here we walk on to Ben Franklin’s gravesite. He is buried near the outside corner of a cemetery and they had such a problem with people traipsing through the cemetery that they actually changed one section of the brick wall to wrought iron next to his grave so people could visit as well as place a penny on top of the tomb without entering the grounds.  The penny is a show of respect and is related to his saying that “A penny saved is a penny earned.”

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From here  we stopped at a large statue outside the Jewish Museum that honored victims of the Holocaust, heard a story about the writing of the Declaration of Independence, had an opportunity to take photos from a perfect distance of Independence Hall,  and took a look at the remains of George Washington’s home  while he served as president (since Philadelphia was our capitol at the time) before we go inside to take a look at the Liberty Bell. The bell has not been used in many years, due to a crack in the metal. They tried to fix it but the first time they rang it after the fix, it cracked again, this time the crack continued almost all the way to the top of the bell.  The bell was never rung again.

 

After viewing the Liberty Bell it is time to enter Liberty Square. First stop is a guided tour through Independence Hall, where our founding fathers argued and debated and ultimately made 80 modifications before approving Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. Mr Jefferson was none too pleased but that’s the way things go. To understand how exciting this was, I will use a student’s actual words, “We are inside the room where that actually happened?  And that is George Washington’s actual chair? Wow is this cool!”   We are in the same room as the scene depicted on the back of the two dollar bill, signing the Declaration of Independence. We also see and hear how trials were conducted at the time, sat in the chairs of the representatives in the House of Representatives and viewed the room where the original senate would meet. There were also original copies of The Declaration of Independence, The Articles of Confederation and the Constitution. Without the very long line like at the National Archives in DC (which is why we waited for Philly to see these important documents..

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Next we head into a big publishers building that is being converted in to condos. The reason we care? There is a huge stained glass mural that takes up the entire back wall of the entrance lobby. It is breath taking. The mural was drawn by Maxfield Parish and then covered with stained glass by Mr Tiffany. Yes, part of the same family that has the Tiffany jewelry company.

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Time to head back for lunch. Now, let me preface the story a little bit. In the past Old Philadelphia has been and absolute zoo with tour groups everywhere you looked. Lines were quite long at every site and all of these people were trying to eat lunch in the same couple of restaurants.  To avoid these crowds we tried driving someplace out of the center of the tourist area but then we got stuck in some horrible traffic. Seriously, this place is a traffic nightmare all of the time. It is just crazy so today we decided to try something new and have sandwiches delivered to the bus and just walk half a block to the park to have lunch. This would minimize downtime and we wouldn’t have to deal with all the hassles.  That was the plan but as you may have noticed, plans tend to change a bit on this trip.  So, here is the new plan. Since we didn’t have time to go visit the Rocky Stairs either last night or this morning due to the traffic and we couldn’t go there on the way to the airport very easily, we decide, we would get the sandwiches and eat them on the bus as we drove to the Rocky Stairs and back.  That way we could fit both things into the schedule. Great idea, right? We all thought so and it would have been perfect had the sandwiches arrived on time. They were late kind of negating the saved time idea but nonetheless we still had a chance to take a run up the Rocky stairs.  By the way, they are the actually the stairs leading up to the Philadelphia Art Museum, they just happened to appear in the movie Rocky as he was training for his next fight.

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After lunch we went over to the Quaker Meeting House for a wonderful story about the founding of Philadelphia and the Quakers/ By the way, the Quakers is just a nickname. The real name of the religion is the Society of Friends.  We also here the story of Betsy Ross and her husbands (1 at a time but the first two died) and her seven daughters (5 of whom lived to adulthood) and whether she did or didn’t actually make America’s first flag.

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Next it is time to go inside the National Constitution Center. This place had a number of exhibits including a multimedia presentation called Freedom Rising as well as special exhibit on Alexander Hamilton. I think the coolest thing about this museum is the fill size bronze statutes of everyone who had signed the Declaration of Independence. The students were allowed to walk among these figures, that photos, put phones in the statues hands to make it look like they were taking selfies and in general have a chance to be kids. They enjoyed this immensely.

 

After this the first group heads off to the airport while my group continues the walking tour of the area. We go down Eldreth Alley (I doubt I spelled this right) which is the oldest original homes in the city. We heard about the fire insurance business and how it was started by Ben Franklin while looking at the tall, narrow old places and how they were a businesses in the front and a residence in the back and upstairs.  Now they are all pretty much personal residences. I can’t imagine want to live on a block with tourists gawking at my house365 days a week all morning as well as all night, which can only be accessed via a very narrow cobblestone road.. And yet, the homes are about a half million dollars a piece. Go figure.

 

We finish out the tour walking past and hearing stories about Christ Church (the church almost all of our founding fathers attended while they were in Philadelphia) , Penns Landing (which is kinda like a Pier 39 in San Francisco) as well as this incredible sculpture depicting the Irish immigrating to America and getting off the ship. Each of these stops was accompanied by a wonderful story about the site and more by Ellen. Both Ellen and Bill have served as guides for us before and they are both excellent but alas, it is time to say goodbye, load up the bus and go to dinner before heading to the airport.

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Once again,  we make our way through horrendous Philadelphia traffic, this time to Bob’s Burgers, a new restaurant for us. The restaurant has enough room for about one bus. Unfortunately, another bus was running late and walked into the restaurant about two minutes before we arrived and there were only enough seats for about half of us. They did a pretty decent job of making the food and getting us served but it was definitely a less than ideal situation.  The manager gave me a $25 gift card to apologize for the mess which was a nice gesture I guess however I would never be able to use it so it was an extra bonus tip for our driver James. Since he is from Philly and his parents still live there He would be much more likely to find a use for the card than any of us would.

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Finally, after a long tiring yet wonderful week it is time to go home. Airports are always stressful and for some reason Philadelphia always seems to be more so ,so I will just leave it at that, keep it positive and move on.

 

I hope you all had an amazing journey. I know we packed a lot into a short period of time but once you get rested up I know you are going to be able to share this great memories with your family and friends.  Be sure to thank your parents for letting you go on this journey. It is a big deal for parents to let their kids to do grown up stuff like this on there own so make sure they know you appreciate it. Those group  photos we took out in front of the Capitol will be ready soon. When I have them I will send out an email and let you know when they will be ready for pick up. I will come hang out in front of Kenilworth for a few hours to pass them out. They are included in the price of your trip and since we went through so much hassle to get that picture taken it sure would be nice to have a copy of the results.  Also, you can still earn school credit for the trip. Refer to the paper I gave you at our pre-departure meeting for sign up instructions..

 

Thank you again for joining me on this  trip. I hope it brings you fond memories for many years to come.  Keep in touch.

Yours very truly,

Mr Michael Eklund