October 4 Washington DC
Today we went back to the mall to look at some of the monuments. We visited honest Abe and questioned how comfortable he would have felt seeing himself enshrined, maybe not so much. Nevertheless the monument is a very powerful one as it serves as one of the anchors of the mall.
We didn't linger too long given it was very crowded showing it's popularity. Wendy had not seen the MLK monument so we went there as well, needless to say she was mightily impresses by its power and creative beauty. The wisdom imparted by the quotes of Dr. King that were emblazoned into the stone wall were truly inspiring and served to give us some hope in these troubled times.
Subsequently we visited the FDR memorial. I'd seen it twice before however had new and more meaningful experience of it having just visited FDR's home and presidential library. The monument takes you through all of his four terms as president highlighting the challenges of that time. What comes across so well is that in spite of the wealth he was born into, he understood the suffering of the common man and enacted programs to ease it. He also had a very global view and understood that our country needed to be a global leader rather than a bastion of isolation. It instilled some considerable sadness in both of us to have to witness the systematic dismantling of these programs by the current administration.
Finally we visited the Korean War and the Vietnam Memorials. The former brought back memories of my dad and his stories of his two tours in Korea as well as Vietnam. The Korean War memorial really shows, in a very human way, the abject miseries our soldiers had to endure, while the Vietnam memorial is perhaps one the most powerful architectural statements on the mall while making it with a pure simplicity that honors the soldiers that died there.
All together we had an emotionally gratifying morning. We also discovered the "Circulator" bus which only costs a buck a ride and takes you all around the mall. Yesterday our feet hurt pretty bad at the end of the day after walking miles. Today was much better.
After the monuments we hoofed it up to the National Portrait Gallery where we saw the Kehini Wilde portrait of president Obama. I made us yearn for those "Good Old Days". We also saw Michelle Obama's portrait which reflected her stunning beauty. An oddity was a portrait of president Nixon done by Norman Rockwell. Both of us thought that the pairing of artist and subject was rather incongruous, but hey, what do we know.
We hurried back to Al and Robins house so we could possibly pick up our motorcycles which were in for servicing, but alas they were not finished.
Tomorrow we catch a bus to New York City. Wendy is soooo excited to be able to show me around the city she lived in for ten years and I'm excited about having such a good tour guide.
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