Washington DC and the MXdN

So, our trip to the Motocross of Nations was AWESOME. It included:

1. MXdN - So cool - US dominated every race and we were able to see Ricky Carmichael's last ride. It was PACKED. We had Europeans invading our personal space and blowing cigarette smoke EVERYWHERE. Reportedly, 70,000 people attended. It was awesome.
   
2. Spotsylvania (Bloodiest battle of the Civil War - this is the battle where the 21 inch tree was shot down by small arms fire. We saw the stump of the tree, trenches where both the Union and Confederacy were dug in, a few cannon, etc. Pretty awesome.)
3. Fredericksburg (Another Civil War battle site)
4. The house where Stonewall Jackson died. (Confederate General)
5. National Air and Space Museum - Tel, you would have been in heaven. Corbyn was. We spent about 6 hours here - I was done in about 4... I can only look at space shuttles for so long. Corbyn would have liked more time... I guess it is a guy thing. Space holds limited interest for me.
   
6. Holocaust Museum - I don't really know what to say about this... it was very moving... and interesting... and disturbing.
   
7. Museum of Natural History - unfortunately, this is NOT the one in Night at the Museum. We did get to see a lot of interesting stuff here, including the Hope Diamond. (WOW!)
8. Museum of American History - we didn't actually go here, because it is closed for renovation, but they took the 500 most popular artifacts and put them in a special display in the Air and Space Museum... it had the Sun Stone from the Navoo temple, C3PO and R2D2 from Star Wars (the originals), Jerry Seinfeld's puffy shirt, etc.
9. Arlington Cemetery - my favorite (besides the MXdN, of course) - we were able to see an actual funeral procession. They had a guard of soldiers, the horse drawn casket draped in a flag, the drummer, the bugler and they were leading a riderless horse. Wow. I almost cried. (And you know how rarely that happens...) Also, they laid a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, another very rare occurrence. We were in the right place at the right time.
10. Arlington House - I never actually knew this before visiting here, but this was the home of Robert E. Lee - Arlington Cemetery began as a slap in his face for accepting command of the Confederate Army, rather than the Union. They just starting piling the bodies of Union Soldiers on his estate.
    
11. ALL the monuments and memorials. So, this doesn't sound like much, but this is A LOT of walking. I heard about 4 miles round trip - it felt more like 10. My favorite was probably the WWII monument - it was pretty cool.
    
12. Of course we walked past the White House and Capitol.
13. Lastly, I have to mention Captain Billy's. A little restaurant right on the Potomac in Maryland. We decided we wanted to try crab - the whole thing, not just the legs. Yuck. You have to break them open and something yellow (I am not sure if it is poop or brains) splats everywhere. With this very pleasant sticky substance all over your hands, you then proceed to move all the guts out of the way to get at the teeny tiny ounce of meat in the crab shell. Once you extract it (using your poopy/brainy hands) it actually tastes pretty good, if you dare eat it. Regardless of the taste, however, I am a crab LEGS kind of girl. Ugh. The rest just isn't worth it.