Mindy goes to Washington Day one

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About a year ago, I bought a kindle. Then discovered kindleboards.com a forum for kindle owners. And "met" some great folks. Well, the kindle folks in the Washington DC area are the best at in person meetings. When they decided to do one in April, I decided to join. After all, what's a 3 hour train ride between friends? But then I realized that it had been over 10 years since my last trip to our nation's capital, so I decided to make a three day excursion of it. The restaurant where we were scheduled to meet was attached to the Phoenix Park Hotel, so I booked a room there. It was especially convenient since it was just 2 blocks from Union Station and relatively close to the Capitol and the National Mall.

8:10 train out of Penn. Which meant getting to the station by 7:00 since I had to pick up my tickets. Well, of course I was even earlier, but that's just me. I sat in the quiet car on the way down which was wonderful. No loud cell phone conversations, no loud music, no loud kids. Just me and my kindle. I enjoy train rides, it's great to have the room to move around and not feel so trapped. Train got in at 11:25 after a fairly uneventful ride. One funny at Baltimore, though. Gentleman gets on train and asks if the seat next to me is taken. No, I reply, go ahead. So, he sits down, but then quickly says, "oh, this is the quiet car, I can't be here." And off he goes... Glad he realized in time, because if he had pulled out his cell phone, I would have been a bit unhappy.

Got into Union Station at 11:30 and started walking, and walking, and walking... In the rain. Check in time at the hotel wasn't until 3 pm and my goal for the day was to go to the FDR memorial, the Korean War Memorial, get photos of a couple of statues near the Vietnam Memorial, the Einstein Statue and WWII Memorial. Well, except for the WWII Memorial, I hit all my goals and even went up to the Lincoln Memorial. But I got soaked. According to the Washington maps, it's 2 miles from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial (a brisk 30 minute walk). But who walks briskly when sight-seeing? Not this girl. At first the rain was a bit of a bonus, the National Mall wasn't too crowded. Well, not with people. But there were a whole bunch of tents for some Earth Day celebration. Which made picture-taking of the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial behind it a bit difficult.

With my handy-dandy map in hand, I followed the route I thought would be best to get to the FDR Memorial (my plan was to walk to the furthest point of interest and then work my way back to the Union Station area and my hotel). Stopped off to take some pictures of the Capitol and Washington Monument. Passing the Hirshorn Sculpture Garden, I stopped off for a few pictures. After recalculating my route, I found an unexpected photo stop. The sign says "National Tulip Library" and it is a patch of ground with 100 different varieties of tulips. Well, I gotten resist and spent about 20 minutes taking pictures there. Then over the Kurz bridge and down along the tidal basin path to the FDR Memorial. Didn't like walking on that path next to the water, because the water was so high that it was lapping at the edge of the path, there were loads of puddles there and low hanging branches. But once I was at the Memorial, I forgot all about the hassle of getting there.

The FDR Memorial is an interesting one. It consists of 5 "rooms" each with statuary and waterfalls. The waterfalls serve a couple of purposes. One is to set a nice calming mood, and the other is to mask the sound of airplanes landing at nearby National Airport.

Before leaving the Memorial, I once again checked my map and figured out how to get to the Lincoln Memorial without going back along the tidal basin path. Unlike the FDR Memorial which was relatively empty, the Lincoln was packed as usual. Which made picture taking a bit of a headache. I try to be polite, not walking in front of people taking shots, waiting until those who consider themselves pros have finished framing "the perfect shot" and then taking mine. Unfortunately, I seem to be in the minority and so I ended up not being able to get some of the typical shots simply because people didn't seem to have the consideration to MOVE!

Next I went on to the Korean War Memorial. This is one of my favorites and one that I find very touching. It consists of a set of 19 statues of soldiers in full gear and an etched reflecting wall. The story I was told the last time I was in DC was that the Memorial was originally supposed to be 38 soldiers to symbolize the latitude that is the dividing line between North and South Korea, but area set aside wasn't big enough to accommodate them all without it looking crowded, so they went with 1/2 the original number of statues and the reflecting wall.

The Vietnam Memorial is one that I have little interest in. Not out of lack of respect for the people memorialized on, but because I just think it's ugly. However, there are two statues near it that I love. One of them is a group of 3 soldiers facing the Wall. Someone once said to me that they are "guarding" the Wall, but don't you keep your back to the thing you're protecting? Someone else said that they are remembering friends and looking at the names on the Wall. I apologize for my pessimism, but to me it has always looked like they are walking towards the Wall to join their friends. The other statue I love is the Nurses' Memorial. Every time I see it, it makes me want to cry, it is so touching. I guess I've always thought of it as a nurses' statue because it consists of 3 women, one of them holding a wounded soldier while another scans the sky for help and a third is bent over a soldier's helmet.

After that I backtracked a couple of blocks to get to the Einstein Statue. The base of the statue has studs embedded in it that represent the position of the stars on the day the statue was dedicated, but I didn't climb on the statue to see that, just took pictures of the statue itself.

Then I started my hike back to the hotel. And of course, the rain got worse. And while those cherry blossoms might be pretty, they also seem to clog street drains and cause HUGE puddles. A few blocks away from the hotel I found the Japanese-American Patriot Memorial and stopped there for a bit.

Got to the hotel around 5:00 and checked in. Nice hotel, but tiny room. And odd bed. It was very high off the floor, so high that they provide a step stool to get into it. After settling in (and vegging out in front of the TV), and figuring out that I walked approximately 6 miles, I decided to head out for dinner. First attempt was at the Dubliner Restaurant attached to the hotel, but it was way crowded and way too loud for my mood, so I walked back over to Union Station and had dinner at B. Smith's.

Last week I had seen something about History Channel's "The Story of Us" on-line and it said that they would be doing a light show at Union Station. Well, after dinner, I was actually able to see it from my hotel room. Pretty cool.

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Comments

[Ron]

FDR Memorial/Vietnam Memorial
Oops--I read your other post before this one and wala! You actually did go to the FDR memorial! I knew we had similiar tastes. I do however, find the Vietnam Memorial very moving--mainly because it was the first "new" memorial to be built after Lincoln, Jefferson etc. Something about the graceful rise and fall of the cold stone tablets along the pathway. I wonder what it was like to be a young person during that time with a mandatory draft. I can't imagine young people today being sent off to war with no choice (unless you could get an excuse with money, family connections, or going on for higher education). Did you go to the Holocaust Museum? That is another amazing institution. When I was in DC last, we had some great food in the Adams-Morgan area. Check the area out next time you go back. R