Day 53, Memories, Revisting Old Ones and Making New Ones

The weird thing about visiting Washington, DC, is that we lived here for seven years. We'd had lots of visitors during that time and we always showed them around the Smithsonian and the important government buildings. Coming back, I had a few things I really wanted to visit, but most of all, I wanted to see the World War II monument that was dedicated in 2001. My dad had served in the Army.

We started off the day by visiting the first home we bought and the one we brought Colleen home to. It was a new townhouse development fairly far outside the Beltway when we moved in. Our post office changed three times while we lived in the same house. It has changed since we left and the neighborhood is very built up with townhome developments, apartments, and commerce. The suburbs have engulfed our small community and if you had dropped us on the street, we would never have recognized where we were.

Having lived here, we knew we didn't want to deal with Washington traffic so we took the Metro in. The station closest to the campground is the furthest one out on the Green/Yellow line. It too is new since we lived here. We haven't been on public transportation since the pandemic so I was a bit worried. No need, we traveled in off-peak hours so there were few people and EVERYONE we did see wore masks.

The Metro is SO much nicer than the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART). It is clean, well lit, the announcements are understandable, and directions are clear. Can someone explain to me why we can't have that in the Bay area?

We emerged from the Metro not far from the Smithsonian. Because of COVID, many of the museums are closed Monday and Tuesday (something we hadn't realized when we planned to come) but the Smithsonian museum I most wanted to see was the Hirshhorn outdoor sculpture garden. Many of the sculptures were ones I remember seeing, some were new. I enjoyed both.

We wandered around, past the carousel I thought I'd lost Colleen on (long story for another time), the majestic views of the Washington Monument, Capitol Building, and the kinda disturbing view of the White House. It is so much less accessible and so much more fortified - it is really a sad testament to our times.

We made our way to the WWII Memorial. I know I could have, but I didn't have any idea what it looked like. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is so stark and understated and only makes me feel tremendous sadness. The WWII Memorial is large, imposing, and made me feel a sense of sadness for all the service members who died.

There are over 4,000 bronze stars. Each one represents 1,000 service members who died or were lost. It is sobering to realize that represents one in every forty who served.

In addition, I also felt a tremendous sense of gratitude and pride in the unity those men and women exhibited in fighting for our freedom. As I turned and looked at the Lincoln Memorial, I couldn't help but think of Lincoln's words, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." And while he was talking about slave and free, I couldn't help but think of how divided our nation has become and wonder how will we stand.

OK, enough of that.

After sitting at the WWII Memorial for a bit, we walked over to the Air and Space Museum. It was one of the museums that was open (with reduced hours). Going into the museum is like getting into an airport or courthouse. You need to put your belongings through a scanner and walk through a body scanner. While that is new from 20 years ago, some of the exhibits were ones we'd remembered. 

And, you can still touch a piece of the moon 😊

Denis liked seeing the "test vehicle" for the Hubble Telescope, built in Sunnyvale, CA. This one was never meant to fly but was built exactly like the one in space and was put through all the tests.

Denis also enjoyed the "Spying from Space" exhibit noting that the exhibit ends before the work he did when we lived here.

The highlight of the day was getting to visit with our godchild, Jonathan, who began a job with The Asia Group today.

I'm not sure we had a proper celebration but we did get to have drinks together before eating at one of his neighborhood restaurants, Dolan Uyghuyr. Denis, Colleen, and I had eaten at a Uyghuyr restaurant in Beijing. Here, the food was the same and just as delicious.

We will now start our trip home. It will be a long time before we get to see any familiar faces. I'll find that hard. One of the best things so far is being able to took forward to seeing friends and family. Our original plan was to include many people along the way home as well. Maybe one day Covid will finally be controlled and we'll be able to try again.