Back: May 29 - Harper's Ferry Forward: June 8 to 11 - Intercourse

We had visited Washington D.C. on two prior occasions as a family, but we love it enough that we felt it warranted at least a week or so on this pass.  We continued driving from Harper's Ferry, and after a 2 hour delay caused by an accident on the beltway, we arrived at Cherry Hill Park campground, just outside the beltway on the Baltimore side.  As this is one of the only campgrounds serving the metropolitan D.C. area, it was pricey: $40 or so a night.  As the lady said who checked us in: welcome to Washington D.C..

We set up camp in a nice spot, although the whole park is so close to the beltway that there is constant car and truck noise all day and all night.  After a quick dinner, we retired.

The next day we boarded a city bus bound for the nearest metro station, and ascended up out of the bowels of the subway at the Naval Memorial, where a precision dress drill was about to take place.  So we parked our butts on the cut stone steps of the monument plaza and began to eat our lunch.  After we had been there only a few minutes, one of the sailors approached Joya and asked her if she got scared easily.  She replied no.  He then asked if she had any special fears regarding having sharp objects very near her face, and she again said that she did not.  Finally he asked if she would help out with the drill that was about to happen, and when she said she would, he told her to come forward at his signal, and handed her a cap which she was to wear.

Now very curious, we watched the drill begin.  It was very impressive, involving about a dozen men, along with a color guard and some other uniformed personnel.  At the signal, Joya stepped forward and stood very still.  Rifles with bayonets whirled about, very close to her face and head.  You can see that she is smiling -- true to her word, she was not afraid.

In the photo at left, Jordan was doing her best to impersonate the bronze sculpture of the sailor at right.  Behind them both can be seen the steps that we sat on during the drill.  

This photo is especially for Carl, Jody's dad, who served in the Navy.  It is set near the center of the square comprising the Naval Memorial.

We toured the Navy Memorial museum, housed in one of the buildings just off the central plaza that constitutes the memorial.  This was interesting, with lots of info about submariners and the hardships that they endured while at sea.

After our exciting introduction to D.C., we headed for 'the mall', Washington lingo for the large park sitting between the Lincoln memorial at one end and the Capitol building at the other.  Many of the monuments and historical buildings  are a short walk from the mall.  We started at our favorite of the many Smithsonian museums, the National Museum of Natural History.  Below, Jordan models next to the leg bones of an elephant we encountered there.

And here is the elephant -- or rather, his skin and tusks, as he is now stuffed.  I believe he was originally killed by poachers.

After elephants, we took in one of the 4 IMAX films showing at the museum.  We tried for the film on the Galapagos Islands (a destination Jody and I would like to attain some day), but it was already sold out, so we opted for the IMAX 3-D Circque du Soliel's production of "The Journey of Man".  We love Cirque, and highly recommend all of their shows, having now seen a half-dozen or so.  The Journey of Man features quite a number of classic Cirque acts all wrapped up neatly in a simple but beautiful plot following a boy through the passages of life.  The visuals are stunning: with the 3-D glasses on, everything we watched seemed to somehow be more vivid than real life.

The mall is a busy place during the summer, nearly overrun with tourists crossing from one museum to another.  However, after 5:00 PM the locals reclaim it for a variety of sports activities.

The next day we focused on the Southeastern corner of the mall.  We tried to get in for a tour of the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, to see paper money printed, but all the allotted 'tickets' for the day had already been given out (by 9:30 AM).  This was a recurring theme this trip, and one for which we were unprepared: on our last two visits to our nation's capitol, we were there during October, and essentially had the city to ourselves, tourist-wise.  This was a stark contrast; there were tour busses everywhere, loaded with hoards of noisy school kids dressed in matching T-shirts and/or caps.  We made a note to avoid this town during the summer in the future.  You would be well advised to as well.

However, we were there, and made the best of it.  We stood in line early for the things we really wanted to see, and this day managed to get tickets to the Holocaust Museum.  Our time was not until 12:30, so we popped over to the Jefferson Memorial first, which is right across the Potomac.  Here is part of the walk on the way over to the monument.

Jefferson himself would have hated his memorial.  Although it is moving and interesting, we discovered in Lies Across America that Jefferson's words, which adorn the walls of this Greek temple, were taken out of context, and/or phrases disparate in time and intent were joined together to portray a purer picture of this great man.  That said, it was nonetheless a marvelous monument to one of the intellectual giants of our land.  In the photo below, the words on Jefferson's right are taken from the Declaration of Independence, a document about which he was most proud, and rightly so in my opinion.  The statue is about 3 times life size.

As I mentioned on the page regarding Monticello, Jefferson suggested (and was given) his own epitaph.  Not commonly known is his 'Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom', which had the chief effect of eliminating the state-mandated requirement that all persons attend church at least once per month, or face jail.    Jefferson often invoked God in his writings, but was very private when it came to how he chose to worship.  He is labeled a Unitarian, although I do not know if this is a label he ever publicly gave himself.

We next walked over for our tour, first stopping at the excellent Museum Cafe, which served up very tasty reasonably priced vegetarian fare.  If you are ever in D.C., you must not miss the Holocaust Museum -- but it is not a pleasant experience.  The horrors of the Holocaust are dramatically and thoroughly documented there, on 4 floors of well-presented and organized artifacts and multimedia displays.  It is a grueling, brutal museum.  We spent nearly 6 hours there, and still did not read all of the information or watch all of the short film segments available.

"Lest we forget"...

That pretty much did us in, so we returned to our home base, a 1 hour metro and bus ride, and retired early.

The next day we returned to the mall, again to the National Museum of Natural History.  Our first stop was the Harry Winston Gem Exhibit (or some such), which features the infamous Hope Diamond, pictured below at about life size -- it is not humongous.  It is, however, a blue diamond, which is rare, and is one of those artifacts about which much more fuss is made than is warranted, in my opinion.  Sorry the photo is so bad, but we took it through glass, and our point-and-shoot camera's focusing mechanism sometime gets confused when shooting through glass.

There were also a zillion brilliant gems and other pieces of jewelry, the tiara below amongst them; most of these were more impressive and beautiful than the Hope Diamond.  Jody learned that the piece below was donated by a private family, but it originally contained emeralds.  Prior to donation, they removed them, and replaced them with cheaper turquoise.  Go figure.

After jewels, we were hungry, and had packed a nice picnic lunch for this purpose.  However, it was raining, so we had to 'stealth picnic', a technique we had perfected in Williamsburg: order a drink or two at a busy cafeteria, and then sit down at a remote table.  Leave the drink(s) in full view, and proceed to prepare and eat the packed lunch, as unobtrusively as possible.  Works great, and is much cheaper than buying lunch.

The afternoon of this day we finally made it over to the Southwestern end of the mall, and started with the Korean War Memorial.  The soldiers below are all life sized.

Not far away is the Lincoln Memorial, my personal favorite.  If I could meet one of the dead, I would choose him, perhaps over all others.   Something in the renderings of his face -- and thus my mental reconstruction of the man -- speaks deeply to me.

Here I am reading his 2nd inaugural address, inscribed on the right-hand wall of his monument.

And here is an unusual shot of the statue itself, and the inscription above it.

Continuing around to the Northeast corner of the mall, we next toured the Vietnam Memorial.  These 3 life-sized bronzed gentlemen begin the experience.

The memorial continues along as a wall with all the dead and missing from that terrible war listed, in order of the date of their disappearance.  Over the 15 or so years of the war, we lost more than 50,000 men and women.

By rising that day at 5:30 AM, driving downtown, and getting in line at the visitor's center, we were able to obtain tickets to tour George W's new digs.  Our tour was scheduled to go off at 11:15 AM that same day.  Persons arriving in line after 7 or 7:30 typically did not get in at all.

You can't take pictures in the White House, so we took this one outside.  While on the tour, Jordan was invited to walk down the (roped off) 'red carpet' that the BMOC uses when making official entrances.  The Secret Serviceman on duty there introduced her as "Madam Jordan Thomas, 48th President of the United States" as she paraded down the plushly carpeted corridor.  It was very fun, especially for Jordan -- but she thinks she does not want the job.  She is wise beyond her years.

As I mentioned, we actually parked our car, in the summertime, in downtown Washington D.C.  Here is the picture to prove it -- and we did not get a ticket.  And yes, there were really A LOT of tour busses there; ours was just one such.

We were parked just across the street from Ford's Theatre, where Lincoln was shot.  We toured that theatre and the accompanying National Park Service brief monologue on the history and events surrounding the death of our 16th president.  Predictably, we were underwhelmed with the NPS's spiel, although the site itself was stirring.

In addition, we saw a pretty fun FBI weapons demonstration, where a red-headed pleasant Special Agent fired each of the 3 weapons that agents get issued.  And one of the ladies' favorites was the National Museum of American History, which had an excellent standing exhibit on "The Presidency" with lots of items from the various First Ladies, including some of their inaugural ball gowns.

One of our purposes in visiting this area was to see Jody's cousin Mickey.  If you are a regular reader of these chronicles, you may recall that Mickey's wife Mary Beth and their children Grace and Walton were down in Georgia during Master's time, visiting with the Mulroy's, who are Mickey's parents.  We caught up with them at a Flea Market in Georgetown, where Joya snapped this processed picture of Grace.

Mickey and Beth consider one of the picture frames for sale -- Beth was shopping for one, and Mickey was apparently along mostly to talk her out of it.

Jordan managed to find the exact pair of glasses that I wore when I was 8 years old.  Can't you see the family resemblance?

OK, now I'll really date myself.  Below, Walton is playing with the original "Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots".  I had one of these when I was about Walton's age.  God knows what they are going for now.

Mary Beth is gleeful that she found something to buy, and also that Mickey is too busy chasing their kids around to stop her.

After the Flea, we picnicked at a nearby park, and then drove over to Arlington National Cemetery, stopping first to see the Marine Memorial, below.  This is really impressive.  Each of these guys would stand 15 or 20 feet tall.  Joya showed me how to do some of the processing, which I applied to this image -- a black and white that I hand-colored.  You may recognize this scene from a photo of the taking of Iwo Jima; that photo was the basis for this sculpture.

Next, we drove onto the Fort Meyer Army base in order to park near to Arlington National Cemetery.  This was interesting, as I had never legally driven onto a military base before.

Among other things at this vast site is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, pictured below.  It is guarded around-the-clock, with a changing of the guard every 30 minutes.

The girls were getting a bit tired by this point, so I gave Joya a ride on my shoulders for some of the walk.  She weighs more than my pack did while backpacking, so I could only do it for a short distance -- and boy, did I pay for my display of machismo the next day; I had back muscle spasms that were scary and quite painful.

We obtained a pass to drive into the cemetery, and drove to where Jody's cousin Phil was recently buried, to pay our respects.  While there, we took a rubbing of his gravestone, which Walton helped with, below.

Here is Phil's gravestone, processed to black and white and then hand colored by Joya.  It is a beautiful shot.  

CDR means 'Commander', and PH means 'Purple Heart'.  Phil was a highly decorated career Navy veteran.

We returned with Mickey and Mary Beth to their home for dinner.  Below, Walton shows off his 'Aladdin' duds, courtesy of his grandparents, the Mulroy's.

Not to be outdone, Grace also modeled the Aladdin outfit, with equally spectacular results.

We traveled by subway quite a lot while in D.C., and found it an excellent efficient system.  However, there are some pretty shady characters on the metro that one has to watch out for, like the guy in this photo.

The shots below were taken by Jody.  We were riding in the small semi-private subway that runs between the Capitol building and our congress folk's office buildings.  We stumbled upon this by accident: while stopping by Lois Capps' office to pick up passes to the Senate and House galleries, a  garrulous security guard asked us where we were headed next.  When we told him we were going to the Capitol, he directed us to the basement of the building we were in, so that we could catch this small open subway over to the Capitol building.  He casually mentioned that it might save us some time in lines.  We rode it over both times we visited the Capitol building, and thought it was pretty nifty.  In the rightmost photo, you can see a congressperson sitting in the "Members Only" car.  His face is blotted out not to preserve his anonymity, but rather because we got a bad flash bounce there, and he ended up glaringly bright.

The second time we rode this little subway over was the first day of the new Democratic-controlled Senate, and we wanted to see some of that.  We got a late start that day, and did not get off the Metro until 10:00, with the Senate scheduled to open at 11:00.  Jody was certain we would never get in -- it seemed to us that all the tourists in D.C. would want to be there.  We got off the metro and into this little subway, arriving at the Senate gallery at about 10:30.  The line inside was only 30 persons long or so; by 10:55, we were seated in the rapidly filling gallery.  Promptly at 11, we watched raptly as Senator Byrd was sworn in as the new President Pro Tempore of the Senate, and then watched and listened as Senators Daschle and Lott gave stirring speeches regarding this historical changing of the majority mid-year.  After this, work resumed on the various education bills moving through both houses of congress.  In the Senate, Hillary presided over the proceedings for a while.  For the adults, this was all very fun and exciting.  I later spoke with a woman staying at our RV Park who had gotten in line outside the building at 9:30 AM, and waited 3 hours to get inside.  By using the little subway, we missed that line.  I mercifully avoided informing her about that.

We left the Senate hungry but happy.  While Jody and I prepared the picnic lunch for this day, Joya caught up with some of her friends back home.  She edited this picture and added the caption, so no parental editorializing  was done here.

Just behind and to the left of the Capitol sits the Supreme Court, below.  The columns in the foreground are gigantic.  The overall feel of the exterior design is very fitting for the highest court of law in the land.

This highly processed photo was taken in natural light of the courtroom itself, where my dad once sat as counsel representing some plaintiff or defendant.  

Across the street from the Supremes sits the Library of Congress.  This is one of the most impressive pieces of American architecture I have ever seen or heard of.  The huge interior spaces are ornate but airy and bright.  The room pictured below is really nothing more than a hallway leading to the main reading room, but its beauty is breathtaking.

This is the main reading room, where anyone can obtain a library card, request a book, and sit and read.  This shot was taken from a 3rd floor glassed-in room for tourists.  The statues across the way are life sized.  Sorry about the odd flash bounce at center right, but this was the best pic of the lot, and neither Joya nor I had the energy to hand-edit that bounce out of this pic.  We did mostly remove a metal post that supported the glass panels, and that took long enough.

There is a lot of symbolism in this room, much of which I sadly cannot remember.  It is 8 sided to represent 8 virtues of the learned, like justice, truth, and enlightenment.  Each of these were represented by one of the white marble statues, of which you can see 2.  The smaller dark bronze statues along the center of the photo are various historical learned figures: Aristotle, Plato, and the like -- all representative of Western Civilization and learning, reflecting the Eurocentrism of the time.

One more view.  This is a must-see in Washington, D.C.  We had planned on coming back and getting a Library of Congress reading card, so that we could sit down with a book in the reading room -- say, an original first edition of The Wizard of Oz -- and peruse.  But we ran out of time and energy.  It will have to wait until our next visit.

One of the few books actually visible at the Library of Congress (the other 120 million or so are stashed away in locked stacks which are off-limits to the public) is this Gutenberg Bible, the only perfect condition vellum edition on display anywhere in the world.  Interestingly, directly across from it was a hand-written bible of nearly the same year, also on vellum, that a monk had taken 15 months to copy.  They looked nearly identical. 

Ever on the lookout for fun stuff to do while trudging along from one marble building to another, the girls found that the railings at the back of the Capitol building were good for sliding.

On our way to Union Station, we discovered the Taft Memorial, an intimate, delightful little brick and water garden.  There were no plaques or such to denote why it was placed there, or by whom, but we really enjoyed its lush coolness.

Way before I met my wife, she traveled across country with her 2 best friends, Mina and Linda, and they stopped in Washington D.C.  It being a very hot day, they cooled off by wading into a fountain at Union Station.  History repeats itself below, in the same fountain, although the day was not quite as warm.

Taken by Joya from the rear of the Capitol.  This is a very beautiful and energetic city.

On our last day in the city, we rendezvoused with the Christianson family, who live part-time in Santa Barbara and have a 14 year old daughter who is a friend of Joya's.  We met at the cafe in Union Station and lunched together.  It was really delightful, and Joya very much appreciated connecting with someone from her own age group.  She dearly misses all of her friends, but is being a very good sport about spending this much concentrated time with her parents and sibling.  She recently announced that she is considering enrolling in Santa Barbara High School when we return, so that she can take choral singing, drama, art, photography, sports teams, and the like, and also so that she can have some of the social benefits and experiences of high school, like proms and dances.  We are not opposed to this idea, but fear we will see very little of our precious daughter. 

From top to bottom, left to right: Doug, Jordan, Delayna, Craig, Jody, Joya, Chelsea, Zane, Susan and Hunter.

We took a walk through Georgetown that afternoon, mostly to see all the embassies, but also to observe the architecture and ambiance of this quaint and lively little neighborhood.  We came to fully appreciate why this is so desirable a place to live in Washington D.C.   One does not need a car at all here, since small shops are well interspersed among the tidy brick houses, and there are several metro stops connecting to the rest of the city.

The photo below shows the Indian Embassy in the background, with a life size bronze of Gandhi. 

We really enjoyed this visit, but we were burned out on city traveling, long metro rides, and lots of engine noise.  So even though there was still a lot to see, we left D.C. and headed for the peace of Lancaster County, where many Amish have farms.

June 8 to 11 - Intercourse