washington d.c.- {pre-icelandic escapades}

Wow, it’s been nearly 9 months since my epic trip to Iceland and I’ve yet to share stories and pics on the blog.  Shame on me!  I have no good reason(s) for the delay, just excuses that no one cares to hear about.  And I’d better get to posting or I may never get invited on another college girlfriend’s trip.  Besides that, I mentioned how AMAZING it is in our Christmas letter this year so I owe it some blog space…so here goes:

Visiting Washington D.C.

The launching point for the exciting Iceland adventure was Washington D.C.  Icelandair runs package travel deals from a few east coast airports and Washington-Dulles happens to be one of them.  That just worked out perfectly since two of my travel companions live there.  Since I didn’t want to risk the chance of flight delays and miss my connecting flight, thus miss my flight to Iceland, I opted to arrive in D.C. a day before our Iceland departure.  Plus, it allowed for another night to hang out with the girls and a day to sightsee in our nation’s capitol- bonus! 

It has been a while since I’ve taken time to see many of the monuments in D.C.  And there are several new ones that have opened in the past decade so I was happy to get a chance to see some of them.  It was cool with a light rain {NOT good for picture taking} when Jamie dropped Laree and I off at the end of National Mall opposite the capitol building.  

Our first stop: Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial….I remember visiting Jamie when this one was under construction.  It sits across the Tidal Basin from the Jefferson monument.  I’m sure with more time and better weather I could have come up with more creative pictures.  Plus it was cool and rainy and we had to get going.  As with construction of any monument there’s going to be controversy…this one is no different.  The sculptor put a quote on the side that read: "I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness."  Some claimed this made him sound arrogant and it has since been removed (wish I’d taken a picture of it).  I gave the quote absolutely no thought in regards to how it made him sound.  I was there to see the memorial and appreciate his role in American history. 

the approach from the "back" of the monument

Here is the Jefferson monument across the basin, as viewed from the MLK memorial.  Sorry the pic looks so drab but did I mention the weather was just not cooperating?  I visited once during Cherry Blossom season and the area around the basin near the Jefferson was so beautiful in the soft pink blooms...so glad I was able to see that.

This one is the District of Columbia War Memorial and commemorates the 26,000 citizens of Washington D.C. that served in World War I.  I’m certain there is a formal name for the style of it, but since this is my own account of my trip and not an official guide or history lesson let’s just say it follows the very popular dome and column design of several of the monuments in D.C. We only viewed it in passing since we wanted to have enough time to see the World War II memorial and catch our scheduled tour at the capitol {and a private tour of the Senate Chambers}.

We passed by the Washington monument en route to the capitol building.  It is closed for repairs following an earthquake in D.C. in 2011.  When this monument is open you can ride an elevator all the way to the top and I did so when I visited in high school during either Presidential Classroom or National Rural Electric Youth Tour.  It is likely one of the top things to see/do for tourists.  It has the BEST view of the National Mall and D.C. and is worth the time to take the tour if and when it reopens. 

The World War II memorial was really great.  Pecos has recently become interested in WWII, specifically the Pacific theater, and I’m trying to read more about it as well.  I’ve come to find out that I have retained little to nothing from any history class I’ve ever taken.  Sad but true.  There are areas of the memorial dedicated to both the Pacific and Atlantic portions of the war along with a pillar for each state.  It is mostly open area with a fountain in the middle.  With the design of it meant for visitors to walk around and through it, I’m still not quite sure why it was barricaded during the embarrassing government shutdown in the fall of 2013.  We took a few pictures and headed down the mall to the capitol. 

There are dozens of important and impressive buildings including many of the Smithsonian museums along the National Mall.  Laree and I breezed by them quickly as we were beginning to run a little late getting to the capitol building.  Here’s a few of them:

Our destination: the U.S. capitol building:

I’ve enjoyed every trip to D.C. and look forward to visiting with Casey and the boys someday.  If we don’t make a visit soon we may not have our personal tour guide {Jamie} on hand to shuttle us around!

Alright, I’m sorry if that wasn’t much of a post about my Iceland trip but I thought it might be better to break it into shorter segments since I’m certain no one {even my travel companions} cares to read all about it in one post.  And it might get so long I’d crash the blogspot site.