Sightseeing in D.C.

Monday, September 9th.

After experiencing the downtown traffic Sunday afternoon we decided to take the Metro into town for our sightseeing tour Monday. So after asking directions from a Park Ranger we made our way to the Greenbelt mall again, parked and ate breakfast in the parking lot and took the bus up to the Metro station (after having been up there to find out that the parking lot there was completely full). We got a full day Metro-pass and headed downtown.

Our first stop was the Washington Monument. We goofed around taking pictures of it from the outside and then took the elevator to the top to get the amazing view of the city from up there. Back on the ground we headed down The Mall past the seemingly odd and disproportionate Korean War Memorial to the impressive Lincoln Monument. After studying "the writing on the wall" and paying homage to the stoic Lincoln statue we visited the moving Vietnam War Memorial. The only thing that surpassed the horrible impressiveness of that monument was reading later at the Smithsonian museum that a similar monument to the soldiers who died in World War I would have to be over 8 miles in length!

We left The Mall and passed the White House on a detour up into the city for a bite of lunch and a look around. We then headed back down to visit the Capitol. Since the traffic and parking situation had forced us to take the Metro into town we unfortunately did not have the chance to take any photos with the couch. But we did our best to compensate by doing goofy postures in front of some of the monuments instead.

After an outside view of the Capitol we took the Metro across the river to visit Arlington Cemetery. The seemingly unending rows of simple white gravestones in every direction is at least on a scale with the Vietnam Memorial, if not more impressive. We walked up to visit John F. Kennedy's gravesite and the eternal flame placed there in his remembrance. Before heading back we took the Metro out to the Pentagon. Between construction work and security block-offs, though, there wasn't much to see. Luckily we'd seen it from the top of the Washington monument from where the shape of the building is also apparent.

After taking the Metro and the bus back to our van and running some errands we had a late night dinner at Wendy's, since it was the only place open after 10pm. And then we headed home to catch the tail-end of "Kung Pow" that we missed the night before because the iBook's battery ran out. And we made our beds in the back of the van and retired for the night.