In 2006, I visited with my friend Sarah. Here we are together:
Her brother worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency (the DIA) and he showed us around town.
And while he may be amazing at his job, he might need a bit of work on his home defenses. On our last night, while we were sound asleep in the living room, I woke up to Sarah screaming, "Get out!"
I had noticed a shadow of someone in the room with us, but figured it was her brother or one of his roommates. Instead, Sarah recognized him as someone she did not recognize and ran up the stairs to her brother's room, as I followed shortly behind her.
Her brother went downstairs to handle with the intruder (while I looked around for a way to escape from his third floor window without breaking our legs). We heard him asking the man to leave, and watched from the top of the stairs as the man started to vomit and her brother brought him further into the house to get him to the bathroom.
We called the police and found out that this man was very drunk and thought he was in his aunt's house nearby. When he'd sobered up slightly he was very apologetic and someone suggested we all get a picture together.
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| One big scared to death family |
This is the first time I noticed how historic and ever-changing DC is all at the same time. Not only does it change in terms of administrations, it also gains enormous national monuments. In 2006, the World War II memorial was new. And now, the MLK memorial is less than a year old.
I decided to take the DC the Lights! Washington DC night tour.
The tour began and ended at the Old Post Office, a building with a statue of Benjamin Franklin outside but which is hugely due to the efforts of Nancy Hanks. She was the head of the National Endowment for the Arts in the 1970s and the spearhead of the building's rejuvenation.
We hopped on a blessedly air-conditioned bus and began our tour.
Our tour guide, Paul the permanent tourist, went up and down the aisles finding out who was on the bus with him, where we were from, and what our favorite subjects were. It turned out we were riding with a couple from Alabama, a couple from Australia, and a gaggle of teachers from Vancouver, WA.
And every kid's favorite subject was science. The precedent was set when the first kid answered science and Paul whooped his approval. When he got to me, I learned that he is a total nerd for science and his wife is the head of the pharmacy board in DC.
Our first stop was the US Capitol Building.
We toured the building in eighth grade (and I have a ton of pictures of the beautiful mural on the ceiling), but this time we just took pictures outside.
I was all smiley faced until I remembered who works in there and what they've been up to. After that, I decided they deserved only a frowny face.
Paul was kind enough to offer to take pictures of those of us without a partner to do it for us. Here is a rare example of me not taking a picture of myself.
Next, we drove past the Washington Monument.
I don't remember noticing either of the other times I've been here that the Monument is made of two different colors of brick. The color changes about a third of the way up. The color change is due to the fact that building stopped due to the Civil War and lack of funds. It took 36 years to complete the 555' 5 1/8" structure.
And apparently it wasn't earthquake proofed! The Monument is closed and might remain closed until 2014 due to damage caused by the August 2011 earthquake.
On our way to the next stop, we passed this bunch. I could have taken a Segway tour of DC, but I just couldn't handle looking this
Our next stop was the White House.
It has 35 bathrooms, but we weren't invited to use any of them. It takes a whole heck of a lot of planning and forethought to get a tour of the place. Requests must be placed through Members of Congress -- which is a test in and of itself that people have to know who their Members of Congress are.
My first time in DC was during the Clinton administration. My second time in DC was during the Bush administration. And now I'm here for Obama, the first winning president I voted for.
I am a huge fan of his and it was an honor to take a photo outside his house (although he was away at the time -- the teachers from Vancouver told me he called in to their conference from his bus).
For reference, this is the West Wing, to the right of the main building.
And this is the OEOB, the Old Executive Office Building.
It's really beautiful up close.
This is a long, but excellent clip from the West Wing. The last part of it is exactly why I wanted to take the night tour.
Our next stop was the World War II Memorial.
I remember seeing a commercial with Tom Hanks talking about the need to build a World War II Memorial, but I don't remember why it only happened sixty years after the fact. I asked the tour guide, but he didn't know the answer either.
Each of these 4048 stars represents 100 Americans who gave their lives in the war.
Again, Paul offered to take my picture. I tried not to look too happy standing in front of a war memorial.
(By the way, the Memorial stands in honor of all who helped the country during World War II. They have the names of those who were killed in action, but they are also interested in gathering the names of soldiers who survived and those not in the armed services who assisted in the war efforts. If you would like to add a name to the registry, it can be done here. I am in the process of adding my grandfather.)
Our next stop was the Jefferson Memorial.
I took a picture outside from the top of the steps. One of the tourists next to me was saying that behind my head and far in the distance, you can just see the White House. It was purposefully designed that way.
This picture is entirely untouched. The night and the building really are that beautiful.
Our next stop was new since I was last in the city. We went to the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial that is less than a year old.
There has been much controversy surrounding the Memorial -- it was made in China, it contains an inaccurate quotation, it doesn't really look like him. At least, the pictures I saw of the Memorial didn't look like the pictures I saw of the man. But seeing it in person, I thought it was a much better likeness.
This is the controversial quote etched into the right side of the Memorial. It says, "I was a drum major for justice, peace, and righteousness" when the entire quotation it was taken from is, "If you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter."
The great Maya Angelou had this to say about the controversy, "The quote makes Dr. Martin Luther King look like an arrogant twit . . . It makes him seem less than the humanitarian he was . . . It makes him seem an egotist." She also pointed out, "The 'if' clause that is left out is salient. Leaving it out changes the meaning completely."
It has been decided that the current quotation will somehow be corrected.
There are several other quotations written in an arch around the main statue. I particularly liked this one:
"I have the audacity to believe that people everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits." I like this one because we now live in a country that can add health care to the list.
This is the "mountain of despair" from which the "stone of hope" comes:
Next, we stopped at the Iwo Jima Memorial, also known as the Marine Corp Memorial.
Some of the women sitting next to me were saying that if you walk around it counterclockwise it looks like it's moving. But, I didn't notice the effect.
We then went to visit President Lincoln at his memorial.
I knew our next stop was going to be the Vietnam War Memorial. The first time I visited the Memorial, in eighth grade, I searched the book at the site for anyone with my last name or my mother's maiden name. I didn't find anyone. This time, I had the ability to call each of my parents and ask if there was a name I could look up for them.
They each remembered the same two people they went to high school with. They both instantly remembered the name of the first gentleman, but were both fuzzy about the second. I looked up the name they both remembered (you can look up names online here). The listing have me the location of where to find his name etched on the wall.
My mom also reminded me that I'd seen another monument designed by Maya Lin. We saw it at Yale and I would have walked right by it if my mom hadn't read about it and told me what it was.
It's called the Woman's Table and it counts the number of women in each of Yale's graduating classes beginning when the school began in 1701. The first non-zero year is 1873 when the Silliman sisters graduated from the School of Fine Arts. The numbers end in 1993 because that was when the sculpture was completed.
When we arrived at the Vietnam Memorial, I went to 33 east and looked 81 rows down to find the name of my parent's classmate, Phelon Cole.
He was in Vietnam for less than six months before he was killed. He arrived in August 1967 and died in January 1968. Our tour guide said some young men arrived and died the same day.
We drove back to the Old Post Office and the tour guide and I chatted for a bit. He encouraged me to stay in touch and I set off to wrestle with DC's crazy subway system once again. (You pay based on exactly where you want to go and the fare depends on what time of day it is.)
As I was getting ready to yell at and kick the machine that wouldn't let me put $0.15 on my card -- it would only let me put $1.35 on the card, because you have to pay a dollar each time because you're reusing a piece of paper, yeah, I know -- the tour guide came by and helped me out.
We ended up riding the same train back to Virginia and I learned more about his love of literature and science and he learned more about my path to nursing.
Tomorrow, I'm off to tasty, tasty Philadelphia!
Odometer Start: 40707
Odometer End: 4070
Miles Driven Today: 0
Miles Driven Total: 6869
Today In/Around: Washington DC
Tomorrow: Philadelphia, PA
States Visited: 15.5 (Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington DC)
Branches of Government: 3
Electoral College Votes for Oregon: 7
Members of the House of Representatives: 435
Amount It Cost for Me to Get Back to Virginia: $0.15
Amount It Actually Cost for Me to Get Back to Virginia: $1.35
Amount I Have Left on My DC Subway Card: $0.20 (but I'm holding on to it for next time!)
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