Monument Walk

After seeing everything we planned at the National Museum of Art, East and West, we headed to the Archives to finish the day.  We also walked over to take photos of the White House before catching the metro.  Only walked 11 miles that day.  Just a good stretch of the legs, but the following day was our planned monument walk.  It was overcast and again around 50 degrees which was actually pretty good for the excursion, but again it was misty.  Now let me say that I have done this before, but my partner had not, so it was new for one of us.  We started at the Washington Monument and proceeded in order to the World War II Memorial, the Korean War Veterans Memorial (my personal favorite), the Lincoln Memorial, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial before we stopped and had a coke.  Then we proceeded to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, then the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial.  This is where the sun came out.  Unfortunately, the pump house had flooded so none of the fountains were running.  I hope that is fixed soon, but I can appreciate the quiet.  I believe you can see the flooding in the photo of the Jefferson Memorial which was the last stop (click on the photo to make it larger).  The walkway around the edge of the water was flooded, so you had to take the long way around.  Plus they are working on the Jefferson Memorial, so once you get up those stairs the breeze you expected is shuttered off.  Disappointing.  Then we headed for the Air and Space Museum.  We got a hot dog and a drink before catching the show at the planetarium.  I'm not sure the heavens would be the same without Neil deGrasse Tyson's voice; such a pleasure.  The museum was filled to the brim with students, and almost half of the museum was shut down while they add on to one side of the building.  And to those that read my blog locally - yes, that is Louise Thaden in that photo!  I'm pleased that her home in Bentonville was saved, (even though it is still dismantled at this point).  And it wouldn't have been saved at all without the uproar from the public.  Who are we without our history?  We had a little over an hour before the museums closed, so we popped into the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery to see the exhibit the Empresses of China's Forbidden City.  We really had to move fast, so I took lots of photos to peruse later.  Good thing too because straight up five they rounded everyone up like cattle and shooed us out the door in a mob.  If they had tried to brand me on the way out I wouldn't have been surprised.  Although if they had handed me a bottle of opioids I wouldn't have been surprised either; it is the Sackler after all.  But I hold nothing against the artists who's work I saw and admired.  The stitching was exquisite.  After that we perused the gardens at the castle which were just beautiful and finished the day by walking down the mall to the Capitol and back before jumping on the metro.  A full day to be sure.  Back to my brushes.  

​"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."  - Franklin Delano Roosevelt