Happy Birthday to You!

I went to the parade. It was less than spectacular. But fun.


Then began my tour of the memorials. This one was closed. Ha (see below)


But I did take the time to appreciate home:


This was one of my favorites:



As was this. Even though I went through it backwards.

Very cool. Apparently, his expressed wishes for a memorial were (located near the National Archieves):

However his greatness could no longer be denied. So they created an extensive memorial covering multiple acres, divided into four "rooms" to represent his four terms. Beautiful.

The Korean War Memorial looks like this:


The Lincoln Memorial looked like this that day:


Which was unfortunate. What's that old movie where that women walks in and its just her and him and she's all contemplative... Yeah, I didn't get that experience. But it was special nonetheless. Read the whole Gettysburg Address and half of is 2nd inaugural address.


On to the Vietnam Wall. None of my pictures capture the beauty and sadness that the wall has. That all those men and women that died... that were killed... for... That they continue to die every day... I don't want to get political here, but I was deeply affected.

Leaving the wall I happened upon the 40something annual Marijuana Smoke In. Ran into this guy:

That's Bush there on the right. Seriously, I think he is stalking me. Like get a life dude. Don't you have a country to destroy or something. Loser.

The main speaker while I was there was Dana Beal, founder of the smoke-in and legalization activist discussing the ban and positive use of a drug called Ibogaine. If what he said is true, this country is more fucked up than I thought. To boil the whole message of the rally to one idea it was this:

And to answer your question, no, I did not.

So on to the WWII Memorial!!!! So looking forward to it. Nay. Closed. So I did this for the next two hours:


And then this happened:


I did some other stuff on the 5th. Blah blah blah. The best I saw was this:

The African American Civil War Memorial. Out of the way from all the main attractions. Happened upon it while looking for Fredrick Douglass' house. Unfortunately I never found that because I have not mastered the fine art of reading a map. But the above was a happy accident.

The other highlight of the day was this:

The Navy Memorial. Huge. This is one of 26 bronze 3 dimensional naval scenes that surround other pools and statues and quotes. Very cool.

Thanks go to Jung. Good conversation. Good "home fries." Sorry I never called you girl. Time slipped away from me. Stay creative!

And thanks to America! Happy birthday!