Sore feet

Up bright and early and even managed a run with Dearne (yeah yeah I know, second run in a month … I’m really doing well with this exercise regime).  It was sight-seeing day today, just for something a bit different, so tour-guide Dearne marked out a route for us to follow on the map and dropped us downtown for several hours of hot sweaty goodness.

First stop was the Jefferson Memorial, which in some ways was the most impressive of the various buildings and memorials that we saw throughout the day.  It’s modelled on the Parthenon in Rome and (compared to some of the other ones) is relatively understated.

We wandered round the Tidal Basin (with loads of cherry blossom trees that are apparently pretty spectacular in the spring), had some lunch which watching people trying to boil themselves in paddle boats on the river, then walked through the FDR memorial which  seemed to be full of some wonderful sentiments about the roles and responsibilities of the people in power, those they govern and the place of the US on the international stage.  It’s not far from the White House at all … I wonder if a certain Mr G. Bush walks through there on occasion.  If not, he should.  And that’s all I have to say about that.

We continued on, following a loop around past the WW2 memorial (lots of fountains) and through the Constitution Gardens past the Reflecting Pool (which wasn’t reflecting much of anything, given the stinky green slime that seemed to be all pervasive.  I was pretty surprised about that to be honest, that pool has huge historical  significance (think Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a Dream” speech … or the scene from Forrest Gump … and you’ve got the right place, so it was a bit of a shock to find it a stinky green pond.)

Next up was the monument I was looking forward to the most for some reason, the Vietnam War wall.  It’s pretty well-known, the big black wall with the names of all the American casualties from Vietnam.  It was a pretty quick stroll past it, but there were a lot of people there looking for and making rubbings of various names along the wall – it’s still pretty fresh in the mind for a fair proportion of the population I guess.  I wasn’t particularly affected by it, but I don’t have any relatives that were involved in that war as far as I know … and given the stifling heat I probably wasn’t particularly in the right frame of mind either!

A quick look at the Lincoln and Korean War memorials, and then across the Arlington Bridge (no shade – arrgh!) to the Arlington National Cemetery.  You would almost certainly have seen this in the movies or TV shows – rows upon rows of white headstones, where only military personnel who have served their country have the right to be buried.  Flags on coffins, lone trumpeter, etc.  It’s actually a really attractive place – strange for a cemetery, but there you go -  and huge with it.  I can’t remember exactly how big, but several hundred acres anyway.  We checked out the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (every half an hour this time of year – no great surprise there, I think they’d melt if they spent any longer in  the sun), then across to Arlington house (with all of it’s furniture removed for restoration … sigh …), the Kennedy grave sites with the eternal flame burning and the Iwo Jima memorial which is massive and kinda cool, in a very gung-ho, God Bless America kinda way.  By this time I think my feet had actually been worn into hot, sweaty stumps, so it was definitely time to go home.  Our wonderful tour guide Dearne came and picked us up – the air con in the truck was very, VERY welcome – and we went home for dinner, drinks, shower and some very welcome sleep.  My god, that was a long hot day.  Didn’t get sunburned though and my tan is coming along nicely, so there’s always an upside…