Lincoln's Birthday

I spent the past week in Washington DC for work. This is my second time visiting DC, both for work. The first time, I got deathly ill during the week and spent two days dying in my hotel bed. I then spent my last day walking around the mall in a dayquil daze, ending up missing my plane and having to spend another night there. I did get to visit most of the big sites the first time around. This time I didn't get sick or miss my plan, YEA!! I also got to see some things I wasn't able to the first time around. I think I have it now to where next time I can hit up a museum and not have to try and get a bunch of site seeing in.



Our hotel was in Pentagon City/Crystal City right across the river from DC and on the other side of the freeway from the Pentagon. My room didn't have a view worth noting but our meeting room and where we ate breakfast and lunch both had a nice view of DC. The weather was beautiful for February and we kept the balcony door upon most of time during our meetings. It was hard to keep focus on work while day dreaming at all the history the area holds while looking down on it. That and I kept wondering if I went over to the Capital if I could sit in on their stimulus debating.



The Pentagon looks a lot better from the air, from the ground it looks like a big ugly forbidding building. The Pentagon 9/11 memorial was sobering. They had one of these (in the above picture) stool type things with a pool of moving water under them for each person killed at the Pentagon. They are organized by the year the victim was born, the first year you come to is 1998, then 1994 all the way down to 1920 something, can't remember the oldest person, I just remember thinking that they were old. Standing in the middle with all of the little pools of water making noise, I felt flustered and couldn't help get but get upset about the whole thing. It was much more calming when there were just one or two of the moving water pools.



For an uplifting experience I then went to Arlington Cemetery. Not really uplifting but not as somber until the Unknown Soldier. The cemetery as a whole is really net and insanely huge. Who would have thought that there were so many people buried there? I didn't understand the layout at all, not sure there was much organization and was surprised at how many family members (not mine but of military personal) were buried there. Lots of wife's and children. Another peculiarity is Bobby Kennedy, JFK is buried with his wife and two children both of whom died with in the first year of being born. Bobby is buried all by himself in with this little marker just around the hill from his brother. Robert E. Lee owned the land before and had a nice huge house on top of the hill that overlooked DC, I thought this was odd as well. Just odd that no one else before had built their house on it? Seemed like a prime location and the house didn't start construction until about 1801 or '02.

The Unknown Soldier was a great experience and defiantly a place to reflect on the country. It was amazing to watch the soldier pace back and forth, then the changing of the guard. Truly amazing.



I then made the wise choice of forgoing the Metro ride to the mall and decided to walk there. I don't know if my choice was good or bad, all I know is that I walked FOREVER and thought I was going to get blown into the river by the wind. I did get a nice shot of the Washington memorial from the bridge.



I'm not sure if there is a short way from any Metro station to the Lincoln. I had to stop by Lincoln, it was his birthday that day, how could I pass that up? Nothing going on there, although he did have a ton of flowers and reefs around him and he had the most visitors.



I then walked from Lincoln to Jefferson. Again, I don't know if this was the wisest choice but it looked like all of the Metro stations were about the same distance away and would have walked a ton no matter what I did. I did get to walk through the FDR memorial on my way. That was pretty net, would have been better if it had been light. I really wanted to see Jefferson on my last visit but just didn't make it, it's so off the trail from all of the other memorials. Jefferson is one of my favorite presidents and I made sure I was going to see his memorial this time. I wasn't able to take many good pictures, all of the ones I took closer didn't turn out that well. The walk was well worth it! It is an amazing memorial and I really enjoyed the information under his memorial, there is a little Jefferson museum that gives his life story.

I then made another great choice and I walked to the Metro and took it to Alexandria to walk down Kings Street. Kings street was way sweet and would have been a ton cooler if it had been light and if I wasn't so sore from all of my walking. But I had to do it. I get to places like DC and I have to try and see everything I possibly can even if it nearly kills me.

I was also able to visit China Town the night before, it's like the China Town in Philly, one intersection that spreads down all four roads for about a block, maybe two. I understand that China Town in San Fran is the same way. I have always pictured the China Towns of being quit a bit bigger, like blocks and blocks or something, anything more then what they really are.

The kids were excited to have me home. They all wanted to sit with daddy, even Jet was fighting for his spot. And yes, my feet and legs are still sore but I made my flight on time!



Oh, Brett if you read this and think "Brad, you should have called" I thought about it, but didn't want to trouble you and I wasn't sure what my scheduling would be like. But thanks for the thought.