Where did the water in the fountains go?

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Up early this morning to head to the Washington Monument. Grabbed breakfast at Starbucks since it was about the only thing open anywhere near our hotel in the downtown area on a Sunday morning.

We had pre booked tickets online so lined up, avoiding the line to get free tickets, and went through security. Everywhere has security, metal detectors, at least a couple of guards and a whole lot of tourists confused abouts whether for each attraction they will be made to take off belts or if they can take water in with them. The only thing that seems to be consistent is the no guns, no knives policy.

Built to honor George Washington, it is the world's tallest stone structure and the world's tallest obelisk, standing 169.294 m tall. It was also built in two stages, hence the reason the bottom is a slightly different colour to the top.

Thankfully, it was into an elevator where it was a brief ride to the top With a very short elevator speech from a guide who gets to go up and down all day long.

We were the first group up for the day so managed to get through three sides of the viewing platform without having to wait at all, then a very short wait for the fourth and final side before heading down to the exhibition area and back down the elevator. By the time we got down ones levelthe top was slowly starting to fill up, with people clambering over each other to get views and photos out of the windows.

As today was going to be 10 degrees (balmy compared to what the rest of the week was shaping up to be!) , we decided that it would be a good day to wander the rest of the monuments. So it was onto the World War II Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Korea War Memorial, World War I DC, Martin Luther King Memorial, Roosevelt Memorial and then the Jefferson Memorial. All had toilets and water fountains and most also had mini exhibitions that explained a little bit about them which was very helpful given I know limited about what different Amercian presidents said, did and stood for.

Even managed to get some sunshine and blue skies for a little bit which was quite pleasant. Mind you, every single memorial that usually has some form of water feature was without water. Think because during winter they just freeze up, even the memorial/reflection pond had areas that were iced up, the ducks just swam around the ice

From there it was on to the Holocaust Memorial since that was fairly close by. Slightly depressing as these tend to be, but interesting nonetheless. Very well organised, easy to follow and made up of three floors with lots of personal stories and accounts along the way. Not really specific to American history though.

Then, starving, we grabbed lunch at the Museum Cafe, some rather average mini pizzas, before heading to the American History Museum as it was also fairly close by.

Spent a good hour or two wandering through the exhibits there, most of which were focused around major world events, both the world wars, plus other conflicts such as Vietnam and Korea and more recent ones too.

We skipped the transportation section at that museum though due to slight exhaustion, sore feet and museum fatigue. Plan to go back but will depend how much time we have by the end.

Back at the hotel for a rest break and some washing before we walked back down to grab dinner in Chinatown. Ended up having massive burritos and fajitas and a beer at a little Mexican fast food style joint.

With the weather still relatively mild and having read up on evening photo taking, it was then back to the Washington Monument and the White House to get some photos of them lit up at night, along with the Lincoln Memorial and the Capitol too.

Much more successful and even managed to use my new gorilla pod tripod to help steady things too.

By the time we got back to the hotel, Fitbit app on the phone was estimating 20km of walking. No wonder we both had sore feet.

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