July 13, 2018 – Memorials and Monuments in Washington DC

I’ve written before about my distaste for large bus tours. I should have planned my trip here better… but I booked with USA Tours on a whim on Tuesday because I didn’t want to miss out on the National Archives and the Capitol Building, and the tour promised access to both. Throughout the day I’d decide that the tour company did a really good job overall. I wasn’t sure how busy it would be in July (it’s HOT here in Washington DC right now), but they accommodated everyone on the tour really well. For a bus tour, by the way, we still walked about four miles.

We started at the Neptune Fountain outside the Library of Congress. I walked there from my hotel, adding about another mile to my day without realizing how much I’d be walking. My feet had already been through the ringer a bit the day before… and today as I’m writing this I’m also looking for a place to buy some bandages for the blisters. I’m wearing the same shoes and socks I was wearing in New York where my feet got pretty beat up, and I think it’s time to invest in new footwear. It was great to see the Library of Congress building, however, and after meeting up with the group we headed straight to the US Capitol building.

 

 

As we stood in line awaiting security, we learned about the history of the building and how the British had once nearly razed it by setting it alight (and historically allowed the asking of the question: “should Washington should really be the capital of the US?”).

 

We learned about the different houses of Congress and the Senate, then went through security and into the main parts of the building. The tour was time-limited given all the things we planned to see that day, but we did go through the museum part of the building and learn about its history again (in more depth) and talked about the statue “Freedom” sitting atop the Rotunda before watching an introductory video (which only served to make me mad, but this isn’t a political blog). Once the video wrapped up, we went straight to the Capitol Rotunda. The Rotunda is the reason people come to the capitol, and is full of statues, historic art, and a dome modeled in Greek and Roman styles that sits as some of the oldest architecture still in use by the US Government. The picture on the top of the dome depicts George Washington surrounded by scenes of liberty and freedom, as well as the original thirteen colonies (which in this case are women) all around George.

 

 

As we stood, and listened to the guide talk about the paintings and statues in the room, I watched as people in suits walked back and forth between chambers of the Senate/Congress and wondered how many of them were elected officials. The Rotunda sits in the middle of both and is the shortest path from one to the other.

 

 

There’s actually even a roped pathway in the middle of the floor that is open on both sides and helps leave a clear path through the middle from one chamber to the other. It was fun to try to guess who was who, but we moved on quickly and into yet another room full of statues (each state is allowed two statues each, bronze or marble, displayed at any time within the Capitol) and history. I do also want to share a picture of the circle around the dome showing about 400 years of American history from the creation of the US to the invention of flight… a mixture of paint and plaster makes it look almost like it is carved!

 

 

As we were talking about these statues, our USA Guided Tours representatives began talking about how we needed to keep moving, and soon we were outside the Capitol taking pictures and walking the grounds to our bus. We split up into groups of about twenty, and headed out.

The next stop was the White House, this time on Pennsylvania Avenue (you know, the front of the White House!) where we stopped for pictures and walked the block in front.

 

 

We were again picked up by the bus, and shuttled to Georgetown for lunch at a restaurant called Pinstripes that actually looks like amazing place to stop for food. We took our lunch in boxes before heading down to a “river tour” boat ride where we were meant to eat on the boat (we waited about fifteen minutes for the boat, so I just ate ahead of time). By this time, we’d walked about two miles and the boat was a nice break, though it essentially just did a large circle before returning to the same dock. We saw a great deal of monuments and buildings, but for the most part we saw all of these things throughout the day anyway. I think this was an excuse to give the guides a chance to get lunch, but maybe I’m being pessimistic about this part. I’m actually going to provide feedback to the tour company about this part of the trip… I think we tried to fit too much into one day and this was something that could easily be cut out. I did get a picture of the Watergate hotel, however… so maybe we’ll call this a wash?

 

 

Back on the bus again, however, we headed to the Lincoln Memorial.

 

 

 

 

The Lincoln Memorial was one of my favorite stops of the day, the statue much larger than I would have imagined before seeing it in person. The amount of detail and depth of carving is outstanding, and the walls full of text from his speeches reinforces just what a deep and rich history the US has. In the same stop, we’d see the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and the Korean War Veterans Memorial.

 

 

 

 

We’d continue on to see the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, which was modeled after the Pantheon in Rome (and now I’ve been to both!), and again we’d see speeches and writings on the walls. Jefferson was a prolific writer not only of things like the Constitution but of his own thoughts on politics and freedom, and it was interesting to see that the writing was almost dripping onto the marble due to what I’m guessing is rust or oxidation… but the result is very interesting and makes it feel more like the memorial is alive. It’s an interesting effect and I hope it is not cleaned away one day, I sort of like it this way.

 

 

 

 

By now, I was tired. We’d walked about three and a half miles at this point and many were staying on the bus, electing not to continue walking at the pace we were keeping. In fairness to the tour company, they always made accommodations for the “mobility impaired”, but not being one in that group all of the walking was starting to take a toll on me as well. I skipped the Martin Luther King Junior memorial, as well as the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial simply because it was another half-mile of walking and I was waiting for the Archives. It was our last stop before the Archives, and I took the time to catch up on a bit of work on my phone and sort through some pictures from the day on my camera.

 

Soon it was time for the National Archives Building, our last stop of the day, and we said goodbye to our tour guide after he let us into the building through the guided tours entry and I headed straight to the Rotunda of the Archives. Here, the Bill of Rights and US Constitution are on display. There were hundreds of people in line, but all of the signs indicated that lining up was not what was desired, so I simply walked up to the documents and stood behind a person leaning over the Constitution. Sometimes it’s nice to be tall, and I was able to get a good look at the founding documents of our Democracy. There is no photography in the Archives, and you can tell that the both the Constitution and the other documents on the Archives continue to fade. In fact, there writing is so faint on the Constitution at this point that without the backlighting I’m not sure you’d be able to read it. Luckily, sometime in the 1800’s, copper plates were used to make a printing press and there are “newer” old copies that are much clearer. I thought about the history of this, an all the time that has passed since the founding of our country, and about the impact the digital age has on something like this. Anymore, even if someone were to destroy the original copy of the Constitution (or eventually if it is just lost to the unstoppable march of time), digital copies and new copies will always be available and given the distributed nature of our records today… it will likely never be erased from history (at least in Human times). Democracy hasn’t just been created here in the US, for lack of a better term it has been set free upon the world, and it will perpetuate.

 

With these thoughts in my mind, I walked through the “public vaults” (which are collections of documents around certain topics) before heading in to see a copy of the Magna Carta from 1297 AD, one of four original surviving copies. Having seen what I thought needed to be seen, I exited the Archives and crossed DC again to the wharf, dining on some of the best calamari I’ve ever tasted before wrapping up my night early and turning in for a good deal of sleep. Over two days, I think I’d walked about ten miles… and it was time for some well-earned sleep.