Last night, after I read Katerina Gassett's Choices Are Not Void Of Consequences, I realized that after living in Washington, DC for almost 4 decades, I had never been to Arlington National Cemetery. So this afternoon, I did.
We turned down an invite to a neighbor's Memorial Day picnic and headed to Arlington.
It's a powerful place, especially over Memorial Day, where each of the thousands of graves has a small American flag, placed exactly one foot in front of each stone.
We took the tour bus up the hill to Arlington House, and on the way learned a lot.
What we now celebrate as Memorial Day began right after the Civil War. Widows in the South whose husbands were buried in the North ouldn't go visit them. Same for Widows in the North who had husbands buried in the South. So they started to put flowers on each other's husband's graves.
I never knew that!
So, it was a flawlessly beautiful day with a clear sky. And I had my camera in tow, just in case there were some amazing views.
There were.
From Arlington House you can see all the way to DC.
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