Washington DC

DC was all we hoped it would be. We were so impressed with what our nation has done in the Capitol to represent itself to the world. All the monuments were elegant and graceful. The Capitol Building was all I expected it to be, and more. I think the Library of Congress was my favorite building. Our docent told us about Boris Yeltsin's visit with Pres Clinton, and how overcome he was with the magnificence of the Library of Congress that he said to Clinton "you did all this and you don't even have a Tsar??" It's a world class building. We weren't able to spend near the time there that I would have liked. The metro was easy to figure out, and we rode it all about town. Our hotel had a shuttle that dropped us off daily at Union Station, and then we were off on full days of sightseeing. We even made a trip to Ben's Chili Bowl made famous by Bill Cosby and Pres. Bill Clinton. We asked, and were told that Pres Obama has made only one token visit to the Chili Bowl. The Capitol Mall is much larger than we anticipated. Since no buildings can be taller than the Washington Monument, the skyline does get kind of tiresome to look at with all the low, squat, concrete edifices. Kinda boring. DC is a buzz of activity. We did see the Pres fly in on his helicopter, escorted by 2 other helicopters to the White House. I won't bore you with a bunch of photos of things you can see in any movie, or online, but I will bore you with the sights I found impressive.

As soon as we got to Washington, I wanted to pick out my Christmas present, and found this little gem at the Smithsonian Institution - the Hope Diamond. Loved, loved all the Smithsonian Museums. Could have spent a week just seeing them all. Got a kick out of Julia Child's kitchen, and the Space Capsules. Just nuts to fly back into the earth's atmosphere in those little pods!!




Full moon rising behind the Washington Monument with the World War II Monument in the foreground. I think I was most impressed by the WWII Monument at night. The Korean War Memorial was eerily/ghostly beautiful at night. I won't bore you with photos of everything we saw!




Apotheosis of Washington in the dome of the Capitol. Not quite the Sistine Chapel, but close! It was magnificent.




Freedom Statue in the Capitol Building. The bronze of Freedom is atop the capitol.




Sunrise peeping through the Jefferson Memorial. We were struck by how large all the monuments are. Our nation did a fine job of memorializing those who gave so much towards the birth of our great nation.




The new Martin Luther King Memorial.