Musings From DC: A Weekend Getaway!

The time here is still flying by! The past few weeks have been a little stressful, what with my class papers and finishing my TWC portfolio, as well as attending class, civic engagement, and work. Work has been work, and while I do not want to pursue law as a career (yet!), I have made valuable contacts for my future endeavors.

A few weeks ago, the Law and Criminal Justice program toured The Pentagon. The tour was interesting, but I felt it moved too quickly. There were numerous displays along the way, and we were not afforded enough time to read them over, in my opinion. In the POW/MIA hallway, we learned that more than 74,000 military men and women are still missing and have been since the Vietnam War. This is distressing to me because I never imagined that many people were missing.

We then entered the wing where Flight 77 crashed into The Pentagon. In this hallway, it dawned upon me that I was standing where 184 people were killed by a terrorist attack. This sat heavy on my shoulders, until we entered the memorial. The memorial is housed in a small room off of a chapel inside The Pentagon. It has the names of every person killed aboard the flight and who were inside the building at the time, as well as a Purple Heart medal and a Defense of Freedom Medal, the medal given to the civilians.

It was very touching and awe-inspiring to see the books of the victims, in which family members placed a picture and wrote about each individual. There was not enough time to peruse the victim book, but it was saddening and encouraging at the same time. I did not have time to see the benches outside, but I would love to return. This tour was interesting and worthy of anyone’s time.

After all this, my friends and I decided it was time for a break. We needed a mini-vacation before they started their portfolio work, and I needed a break after all my hard work. We settled on Virginia Beach, VA because it is only three hours away, and it was going to be 90 degrees!!!!! Whoever knew???

We packed up and left Saturday morning (after a few bumps in the road that included our friends not waking up on time, even though they set the departure time AND Yes and I had been up since 5 A.M.!), arriving in VA Beach around 12:30 P.M. We checked into our hotel rooms and headed to the beach. Sand always makes or breaks a beach to me. The sand here was a little rough towards the hotel, but finer and smoother near the water. We pretty much hung out on the beach all weekend, and ate dinner at a seafood restaurant on a marina. It was a great trip, and we ended up leaving around 4 P.M. on Sunday.

I’ll let the pictures do the rest of the talking….