In Our Nation's Capital

I never got lost.  Despite DC's attempts at trying to confound, confuse and lose me, I prevailed.

Memories I never want to lose:
•Black suburban/van motorcades
•helicopter blades beating night and day
•a great melting pot of culture
•foodie heaven
•no lines
•enormity
•an underused temple and the workers who nearly cried at our being there
•daydreaming of Georgetown
•the smell of shoes of holocaust victims
•old stuff

I didn't take many pictures.  I don't need much.  Most of my memories will be the experiences...of smell, sights and sounds combined. And I decided that I since I am a very amateur photographer, the pocket size camera would do, and if I wanted better pictures, I could certainly buy them.  Since these things have been photographed literally millions of times before me...I only wanted the pictures that reflected things as I saw them.

The gift of travel = incomparable.

We spent the first day from sun-up to sun-down walking the National Mall beginning at the Lincoln Memorial, past the National Monument, through a couple of museums to the US Capital and the Library of Congress.

We experienced no lines.  No waiting.  And almost had the entire city to ourselves.  It was cold but sunny and we bundled up.

The last photos are of the "compass" stone, made of brass located in the crypt of the Capital.  It is the literal center of Washington DC, as all roads are measured and assigned from this spot.

The Library of Congress will indeed need to be explored again.  As with the Capital....truly spectacular.

And because it was on the way back to the hotel...we stopped by the White House.  It's current residents were at Disney World.

A sweet experience welcomed us at the Temple the following morning. I'm always surprised at how different a temple looks in real life compared to the images and photos I've seen for years.

There's so much to see in Old Town Alexandria, but oldness was my favorite part.

And to see Mt. Vernon is to feel George Washington and the kind of man he was.

And then it was time to go but not without cramming in one more museum visit and a drive by in the fresh snow...I mean ice.

That's it.  My entire photographic journey.
In our Nation's Capital, television is a priority--not a pastime, news is spontaneous and relevant, food is varied and flavorful, corruption and incorruption coincide, architecture is substantial and enduring and people live and breath the same way they do everywhere else.

Loved it.  Love our Nation's Capital.  I have a newly rediscovered appreciation and patriotism for our country.