sandydtraveljournal: Washington DC Monuments and Memorials. Oct 2019

The weather had finally cooled off a little so we thought it would be a good day to take the red bus around the Tidal Basin to see all the memorials and monuments. Did I happen to mention that this was the hottest first week in October in Washington in something like 40 years?

We didn't get an early enough start to get in line for tickets to go up the Washington Monument so we had to be satisfied with looking at it from the outside. Actually we'd been looking at it all week as you can see it from pretty much everywhere in Washington.

Just down the hill is the World War II Memorial. It's a semicircle of obelisks, one for each US state and territory, with two atria facing each other across the circle - one representing the Pacific and one representing the Atlantic theaters of war. There is a fountain in the center and walls of relief panels run along both sides of the entrance. The reliefs depict different types of service units in the war.

Next stop was the Jefferson Memorial. The domed roof was covered in scaffolding due to some renovation work but the interior was still open to the public. There's a large statue of President Jefferson and inscriptions of his inspiring writings on the walls. While we were at the memorial, Marine One (the Presidential helicopter) flew right over us and across the Tidal Basin to land at the White House. Mike was really excited about that. His godfather had been President Reagan's helicopter pilot and so he was really happy to be able to see the helicopter land at the White House.

The Lincoln Memorial was next and there were a lot more people here than at the Jefferson Memorial. Of course, we've all seen pictures of the huge statue of President Lincoln seated in a chair but it was very cool to see it up close. His Gettysburg Address is inscribed in one of the walls. The setting of the memorial is beautiful, you look right up the Reflecting Pool to the Washington Monument. It's the iconic view everyone thinks of when you mention Washington.

The Vietnam War Memorial aka "The Wall". It's a very unassuming looking monument. Nothing showy or tall, but the sheer number of names is staggering. There were a number of family members there leaving mementos and doing rubbings of the inscriptions. There's a statue of soldiers and also one of combat nurses.

The Korean War Memorial, in my opinion, is the most moving. There are life size statues of soldiers in rain ponchos that seem to look right at you and yet right through you at the same time. The wall at this memorial reflects the statues so that they almost look like ghosts. If you look at the wall closely and at the right angle, you'll see that it has etchings on it that are of people's faces. Soldiers, Koreans, many faces all along the length of the wall. A very well done memorial with an inscription reminding us that "Freedom is never free".