Today we decided to go the tourist route and see the classic sights of DC - The Lincoln Memorial, The WII Memorial, The Vietnam Memorial, and the Washington Monument.
Due to repairs, the reflection pool has been drained of all it's water, so it was a big muddy strip and very startling to everyone who saw it. The park ranger we talked to said that the water in the pool was starting to sink through and make a big hole in the ground, so they've drained it in order to repair and kind of rebuild it so that wouldn't happen anymore and it'd be at least next year until the water came back and the pool was restored. So that was strange to see, very different than what we were expecting, but the memorial made up for it so everything was fine.
The World War II Memorial was awesome, I loved walking through it on my last visit here and it was even better the second time, but there was one thing that just irritated me, GT and my mom. For those of you who don't know, the memorial has a pool of water in the middle with fountains and little pools on the inner edge of the circle. There are signs all over the place saying not to wade into the pools, or throw coins, but to show respect for the veterans. Everywhere we looked, people were wading in the pools and treating it like a beach, not like a memorial to soldiers. Mom tried to confront one family who was wading into the middle and taking pictures like that and they treated her like someone who was stealing ice cream from a baby. If you go to a memorial, please show some respect and obey the rules posted, 9 times out of 10 they are there for a reason. If you want water in play in find a beach or a pool, don't splash around in the memorial pool. There, my rant is done.
The Vietnam Memorial, I don't really know how to describe it, but it just drove people to a respectful silence and the wall made everyone stop at least once and, for me at least, made me think long and hard about how freedom isn't free and thank God for all the soldiers who fight for the freedoms we so commonly take for granted.
The Washington Monument was at the end of our sightseeing leg of the trip so we were all pretty tired and all the tours were filled up so we didn't honestly do much there aside from rest and, in GT's case, say hi to a friendly pitbull. By then, we were done being tourists and ready for lunch, so we went into the American History Museum and grabbed a bite to eat before heading to the aquarium.
It was fantastic! I love aquariums of any shape or size, so being able to wheel through walls and walls of aquariums was so great and I was like a kid in a candy store. My camera ran out of memory really early on, though, so that was pretty lame, but fortunately I got some video on my iPod and phone.
Tomorrow we're going to continue with the animal theme and spend the day at the zoo before packing up and leaving to go back to KY the day after so GT can be home with her family for her birthday or, that's the hope at least, we'll see how much driving we can get done on the 12th.
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