Washington, D.C., Day Two

Yesterday's visit was to monuments and memorials. But first, kitties. The day always starts with kitties. Kitty treats. Kitty pets. Kitty brushing. Kitty laptime. Cleaning up after kitties. Filling kitty food and water bowls. Mornings are all about the kitties. Smitty has decided Mike's lap is the place to be in the morning. He prefers to lap alone, but sometimes he will allow Sadie to join him.

By the time we leave in the morning, they're both ready for their morning naps. As you can see, Sadie is completely happy to have us get the "F" out so she can get some shut-eye.

Okay...so we're outta here. We took the same bus from the RV park to the Metro station where we boarded the Green train to the same Archives/Navy Memorial station in the city. When we came up above ground, we walked a couple of blocks and boarded yet another bus that runs a continuous loop around the mall. From there, we headed for our first stop at the Jefferson Memorial. From there, one can look across the Tidewater and see the Washington Monument. It dominates the skyline in Washington, D.C.

Because it can be seen from nearly every vantage point, no matter where one happens to be standing, I took a lot of pictures of it yesterday. The one above turned out to be the best of the bunch. It's the one I'm putting into my sketchbook. I'm calling this One Word Wonder, "Stately."

Also, we took the requisite selfie here:

It was cold and windy in the morning. We'd dressed lighter than the day before, expecting similar weather. We were a little too chilly in the morning, but the day warmed by around noon.

Turning back the other way, this is the Jefferson Memorial. I've visited it only once before, when I was seven.

As a child, I remembered his shoes being huge...at least three feet long. As an adult, they seem more proportionate with the rest of the man, but he is still one tall dude.

Looking up, this is how the rotunda above his head looks.

From there, we continued on around the circle of monuments, but first, we paused on a short bridge across the Tidewater to see the two in their respective positions.

We walked along the water's edge on our way to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt memorial. I'd visited it once before, but it was Mike's first time. Along the way we noticed this "Visitor Information" sign.

Okay, so very informative. Any questions?

The FDR Memorial is large and inspirational. Because of our approach, we actually walked through from back to front. Here is the man himself with his little dog. He was the president our country needed at the time. These were hard and scary times with the Great Depression followed by World War II. He was a man of bold ideas, and he carried the country forward despite the challenges he faced politically and personally.

I've mentioned the CCC many times on this blog. We've had the pleasure of stumbling upon many of their projects in our travels. It started because of his vision.

There were many inspirational quotations from the man. I'm only picturing a few of my favorites.

We weren't sure of the significance of this wall. It seemed out of place with the rest of the memorial, and we weren't sure how it related to FDR. There were no explanatory signs that we could see. In any case, it looks like this:

When you get up close, you can see that there is a lot of Braille, and it seems to be a "touching" wall for visually impaired people.

There are many biographies available about the life and times of FDR. I listened to the audio version of Doris Kearns Goodwin's book, No Ordinary Time. Her book did a good job of highlighting First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt's contribution to the administration. Because FDR had difficulty traveling, she served as his eyes and ears, taking the pulse of the nation, and reporting back to him. She had her own ideas too. She was our first delegate to the United Nations.

This is FDR's wheelchair.

Here is the explanation given.

There is some speculation that Roosevelt did not have polio, and that his symptoms were more consistent with Guillaum-Barre Syndrome. The diagnosis isn't important because either way, he was paralyzed from the waist down. He was an advocate for people with polio and, no doubt, hastened the development of a vaccine.

From there, we moved on to the Martin Luther King, Jr., memorial. It was a first visit for both of us. The monument is simple, but powerful. There is a wall surrounding the memorial in a semi-circle with a number of quotes. Here is the main part of the memorial.

You can see that the section on which King appears seems to have slid from the two pieces behind.

Walking to the other side, there is an inscription. I wasn't able to bring it any closer or get enough contrast for you to easily read it...

and so I cropped and enlarged it below.

From there, we moved on to the Korean War Memorial. I'd visited this one before, but it was Mike's first time. My dad was a WWII and Vietnam veteran, but he missed the Korean War. He left the military at the end of WWII and, a watchmaker by trade, tried to get a business going in Nampa, Idaho. When that didn't work out, he returned to the military before I was born. I mention this only to say that the Korean War didn't touch my military family in a personal way. Nevertheless, this particular memorial moves me. It's beautifully done. One first notices these soldiers crossing a field.

Behind them is a reflective wall, and they can be seen in the wall along with the sky and the rest of the surroundings.

Etched into the wall are photographs. The juxtaposition of the two is artistically interesting and emotionally haunting.

To the left of the wall is a pool and some statistics about the number of dead, missing, and wounded in the war. Also, there was a UN fighting force made up of soldiers from dozens of nations.

From there, we walked to the Lincoln Memorial. Here is the reflecting pool. In the background are the Washington Monument, and beyond that is the United States Capitol building.

The Lincoln Memorial was very busy on this day.

There were a couple of rowdy groups of 2nd graders (approximately), and despite the signs requesting quiet and dignity inside the memorial, they ran shreaking everywhere. It made it a rather unpleasant visit since the volume level was high. It's an echoing chamber and so all those high-pitched shreaking children were ear-splitting. It was a fairly quick in and out for us.

Looking up, this is what you see:

Standing inside and looking back, this is what you see:

We were getting hungry, and our feet needed a rest, and so we got some lunch at this point. When we returned, we met up with this guy, who ran right up to me, actually putting his front feet on my shoes.

He was obviously looking for a handout in the most endearing way. When there was none to be had, he scrounged around under the grass until he came up with a delicious acorn.

We were standing next to the Vietnam Memorial. We've both seen this one before. It is perhaps the most visited memorial in all of Washington, D.C., and it is beautiful.

My dad deployed three times, and while he came back alive and whole, it no doubt affected our family in a personal way. Those were long-absences and the country was divided over the war. I was a teenager, and confused by the messages I received about the war in the home, when contrasted with the messages I saw and heard in the media. My mother and I ate our dinner in front of the television at night, watching news footage, straining our eyes to see the faces of anyone we knew personally.

The first time I saw the memorial, I was moved to tears by it. So many names...so many lost...so many wounded.

We've been catching bits and pieces of Ken Burns' documentary, recently released, but it's been difficult to get all of it while on the road. We'll have to get the whole thing when we return home. There was much about the war we didn't know or understand as teenagers. Mike's draft number was 108 the year he was eligible for the draft. That year, they called up to 106. For him, it was a time of trying to decide his next move. He didn't want to go to war, but it was also hard to make other plans. I was dating a different boy at the time. His number was 52. He joined the Air Force the day the numbers were announced. Another friend's number was 360. He applied to college. And keep in mind that 18-year-olds still had not been granted voting rights.

There was a man there...a volunteer, possibly...who was helping folks find names on the wall.

The brother of my own brother's best friend was killed on his first deployment. Each time I've visited I've looked for his name. There are directories at either end of the memorial. There, names can be found along with their designation on the wall. Here was Barrie's name. We didn't know him well, but his brother and my brother were life-long friends and so we felt close to him nonetheless. He stayed with my family for a few days before he shipped out to the war. The column on the far right shows his location on the wall.

It was high on the wall, and the volunteer pointed out the name so that my camera could focus on it.

He was just 18 when he was killed stepping on a land mine. So very sad, and only one young boy of many who died in that war. There are other names of people we knew as well, but Barrie's is the most personal.

A little farther on is the Women's Vietnam Memorial.

It looks like this from the other side.

The next one is just kind of fun. It stands outside the National Academy of Sciences.

You kind of have to duck under some trees to find it, but there he is: Einstein in this playful pose.

Here's what his papers say. It's the Theory of Relativity.

It's a very fun memorial, and worth walking a distance to find and see it. Of course, they all are, but this one is a little lesser known than some of the others.

Finally, we found the World War II Memorial, which was new to both of us. It was very large, and difficult to photograph. We approached from the back side and looked through the columns to see this:

On either side are these towers...one for the Atlantic, and one for the Pacific.

There are columns for each of the 50 states and territories. It was a war for the entire country.

Even taking a panorama, I couldn't capture the whole thing. Also, the sun was in a bad position so the left side of my image is blown out.

Walls extend out from the front on each side where some moving relief panels can be seen. I looked at this one for a long time before seeing what was happening here. Can you see it?

They are getting ready to jump from an airplane, and those are their ripcords attached to the ceiling.

This next one is the landing on D-Day.

This one was perhaps the most moving for me...look at the two figures second and third from the left, covering their ears as the figures to the right load and fire mortar shells.

And this one. I liked it because of the photographer on the right side.

Our shadow selves liked this one, and they wanted a selfie.

We'd walked nearly seven miles by that time, and our feet were tired. Things are still pretty green here in Washington, D.C., and the weather has been warm, for the most part. Still, a few trees are in their full fall foliage.

We went back to the RV using different trains and buses since we ended up at a different place from where we'd begun our walk around the monuments and memorials. As we walked along, we came the closest we'd been to the Washington Monument.

It is surrounded by flags at the bottom.

To its left is the new African-American History Museum. It's a beautiful building, metallic gold in color. We considered going in, but honestly, our feet were so tired, we despaired of walking another step, even to get back home. We may visit today, but we'll have to see how we're feeling before making that decision.

Across the way, we could see the White House...not on our agenda this trip. We've both seen it before.

And the day ended with kitties as well. Each day begins and ends with kitties.

They like us, but they really like us because we give them treats.

I'd started a chuck roast in the crock pot at the beginning of the day. Ordinarily, I wouldn't make something like this because I don't like cooking from envelopes and cans. Nevertheless, this was in my recipe database, and nothing goes into my database until it's been tested and approved. Neither of us had any memory of it, and so we didn't know how we'd like it. As it turns out, it was delicious. It makes its own gravy. I just made up some mashed potatoes, and it was a straight "meat and potatoes" dinner. I'm sharing the recipe because it's very easy, and a great RV recipe. As my cousin's wife said, it's my kind of cooking...at least when we're RVing and on our feet all day.

I've been remiss in not sharing some of the new recipes I've tried on this trip. Here are links to two we really liked.

Perfect Pan-Roasted Chicken Thighs: This one was very easy to do, and takes only just a few ingredients. Chicken thighs can be kind of fatty, but in this recipe, the fat is rendered off, leaving a crispy skin and moist meat.

Pork Chops with Roasted Apples and Onions: This can be made in one dish. It uses frozen pearl onions, and so they are mild and sweet. It's a nice mix with the Gala apples. And since it's from Cooking Light, it's also low in fat and calories.

Today's planned journey will take us to the United States Capitol and the Library of Congress. After that, Mike wants to visit the Air and Space Museum, which I believe is part of the Smithsonian. We'll probably do something else as well, but those are the only designated stops.