DC Daytrip

A few times a year Wilmington University offers low-cost bus trips. This is a great way to offer students opportunities to experience some of the well-known attractions in the mid-Atlantic region, and yesterday we took some students down to Washington, DC. It was pouring rain when we left Delaware, but it had stopped raining when we got to the Smithsonian.

The central location of our drop-off made it easy to walk across the national mall and up toward toward the places we wanted to visit.

Once we got out in front of the Smithsonian, we walked up to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Visitors Center (especially important for criminal justice majors!), and then on to the Crime and Punishment Museum.

It's a small museum, but chock full of history and artifacts related to crimes... and informative too! For example, did you know that once upon a time it was a crime to kiss on Sundays?

Also, I can honestly say that Ed's been in a lineup...

and I have been fingerprinted...

It's a fun little museum which covers the history of crime and punishment from long ago to the present.

After the museum, we set the students free to explore on their own and had lunch at my colleagues' favorite place, the Chop House.

We worked off all those calories from eating dessert by walking a gazillion(!!!) blocks to the Holocaust Museum.

Along the way, there were some wonderful signs of spring!

Isn't this metal sculpture of a tree interesting?

These purple tulips had a bell shape and pointy-petals. Does anyone know what they're called?

We walked and walked to the Holocaust Museum... and we probably should have done this one first in the day because it was very crowded! I think every school group within driving distance to DC was there. I've been to this museum several times, and it always moves me. This museum should be visited by everyone, because is a somber reminder of genocide.

Visitors are given an identification card of an actual person who experienced the Holocaust. The card has a photograph and tells the biography of the person. Some of the most memorable exhibits for me are the shoes,

and walking though the portals of family pictures, and just thinking about how these were pictures...

   ...of family members eating dinner, celebrating life events, and the joys of being together... all before the holocaust. The video section where so many people provided testimonials of their experiences in the concentration camps moved me to tears. I have been to this museum several times, and it always gets to me. It is truly a sobering reminder of man's inhumanity to fellow mankind.

At the end of the day, exhausted from so much walking and museum-ing, we simply enjoyed the weather and sat on a park bench in the national mall. As many times as I've been to DC, I had never had time to do that. It was so very nice!