Tim Thornhill sent us these photos along with this message: “Former SW County resident Mark Ellis had never been to Washington DC so my old friend and I took a short trip to the capital last week. Always lots to see there- the monuments,memorials and museums- but we were outside the White House when police rapidly cleared the streets and out came a motorcade.It looked like the president in one of the cars or was that our imagination? We also saw a group walking out of the White House front door and headed toward the street. Sure looked like Aretha Franklin to me! Probably not though…

Interesting seeing Lincoln’s hat in the Smithsonian and Ford’s theater where he was assasinated. Dorothy’s slippers are still there from the Wizard of Oz.

But on this trip the Arlington National Cemetery was our favorite. There was the Iwo Jima and space shuttle Challenger memorials and the Tomb of the unknown soldier. Robert E Lee’s former house and JFK’s grave. But another grave there gives us a barely known link to a local landmark and is the second most visited grave among the thousands after Kennedy’s. Audie Murphy was the most decorated soldier of World War II.He saved his entire unit singlehandedly against a German attack. He became an actor after the war and made 44 movies. I faintly remember when he died Memorial Day weekend in 1971 when his plane crashed near Roanoke in a storm. A memorial to him is on top of Brush Mountain near the crash site along the Appalachian trail not far past Catawba. Today Carol Henderson, my wife Renee and I hiked the short trail to it. Odd that a mountaintop near us in southwest Virginia and a grave in DC had something in common. But it is someone worth remembering- a great war hero.”

To see all of the photos from the trip, click HERE.