trip to dc • 04.24.10
friday was my birthday. we spent the day walking around the mall (literally). we didn’t go into any of the museums except for the national archives (where we saw the friggin magna carta, the declaration of independence, the constitution and the bill of rights – seriously, that’s an impressive lineup), but walked all over…..from the washington monument, past the white house, to the lincoln, down the war memorials, back out to fdr, and then around the tidal pool to the jefferson…literally about 8 miles according to the gmaps pedometer. anyway, that took us past the white house (where jeff’s president lives)….. and which lillis would get a much better look at the next day.
lillis and i both loved all of the quotes on the various monuments. it makes me think that words used to mean something and that leaders used to lead more frequently and more dynamically. or as the hatter would say, the seemed to have been very much more much before.
lil and her sister look out over the reflecting pool (forever spoiled for me by forrest gump) at the lincoln memorial.
i love watching baby ducks follow their momma ducks around.
lincoln, our most conflicted hero. seriously, if you take the time to read these people’s words, you can’t help but be struck by what it was they were doing.
i told lillis if she looked back at me sitting on the steps as she walked away, i’d know she likes me…..only 2% of all people would get that, and about 5 or 6 people read this, so chances are that will miss the mark.
lillis was very touched by the vietnam memorial…..overwhelmed by the number of names. she really couldn’t be much sweeter.
i appreciated the childlike sentiment expressed here……but i’m not sure that these people did a great deal to secure my freedom by dying in vietnam. that’s what makes the volume of names so much more disheartening here. in ww2, it’s clear they were fighting for something great, that their deaths did ensure our freedom. i would hate to die wondering if it was worth it. that’s why i’m unsettled every time i see the vietnam memorial.
the korean war memorial. very peaceful and impressive.
lillis is still pretty, and flowers still make a good lillis backdrop.
the fdr memorial is another interesting one. i grew up loving the whole concept of fdr….all the roosevelt’s actually. even eleanor. that said, he was potentially twice the socialist of any president before or since. i think he was brilliant. he did great things that persist today. i’m pretty sure most of my friends would be forwarding all kinds of emails and making myriad facebook posts excoriating him were he alive today. i wonder if we’d feel differently if we were all lined up for soup?
jefferson (along with alexander hamilton) has always been one of my absolute favorite statesmen. consequently seeing alexander hamilton’s grave, and jefferson’s memorial within about 24 hours of each other is something of an achievement. i would later be dissapointed when the jefferson bible was not out on display at the american history museum.
the next day we parked and headed over to the capitol. i had surprised lillis by having it be her fake birthday and told her she had a surprise. b/c the line to the white house wraps around the treasury, lil had NO idea where we were. AFTER we clear security and are about to walk into the building, she realizes she’s inside the white house and has a mild freakout of excitement. i was concerned a sniper might take her down, but i guess she wasn’t evaluated as a threat. anyway, she loved it and it was very neat. thanks a bunch to Saxby Chambliss, via Julie Smith for getting us in on two weeks notice. lillis even got to go behind the ropes to look at the piano.
then we headed over to the capitol to take the tour there. next time i want the godfather tour where i get to go up in the dome. we had a great time though, seeing the dome, the chambers of the 1st supreme court, the library of congress, and lots of other fun stuff.
that night we did dinner with jeff and elizabeth (and the girls) out in mcclean, and had a good time eating and talking. OH, worth mentioning that we ate at vermillion in old town alexandria the night before. it was genuinely great. LOVED my meal and had potentially the best dessert of my life.
on sunday we met up with jeff and fam at the natural history museum for a bit, then headed over to the american history museum with melissa and jonathon. lillis was quite excited to see julia child’s kitchen (she is an aspirational cook and a huge fan of julie and julia).
we had a really great time; and in other important news, we were able to vet our proposed couch choice (pearce sectional in everyday suede) at jeremy’s house. it worked great for sitting up watching tv and was wide enough for spooning, so two thumbs up for pottery barn.
