Day off in a beautiful city

A day off should be used to enable one's body to recover from the excesses of the previous days. The best way to that is to stay in bed or a chair and rest one's legs but when you are in the capital city of the country being visited, it is difficult to resist temptation.

That being the case, I was up early (before 7) and tried to get some phoning home and abroad out of the way. I breakfasted then met up again with Dave and Bob from last year's and yesterday's rides. Bob had booked tickets on the green and orange 'trolley' tour and we spent a good four hours going round the city of Washington, viewing the sites from an open bus driven by a knowledgeable guide to the sights.

We went past everything - and that was, unfortunately, one of the problems that because of the lack of time that we had and the myriad amount of things we wanted to see, it was impossible to see them all. We passed the White House, the Supreme Court, the Reagan Museum, The Holocaust Museum, Union Station, the FBI HQ, and memorial after memorial. We eventually got off the bus and looked at the Lincoln memorial close up then stood on the steps and looked away from there down, what is known as the Reflective Pool, to the Washington memorial and the Capitol Building. For those of you who have seen the film Forrest Gump, if you remember the bit where Gump stood in his uniform and addressed the crowd before walking into the pond to meet up with his girlfriend, then that is where we stood and this is a bit of what we saw.

The next things we looked at were the memorials to the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Both were extremely moving and thought provoking. The Korean one had bronze soldier statues showing a 'patrol' and the faces displayed the emotions that they were probably experiencing; hunger, exhaustion, fear, alertness and all different types of things.

This is a small selection of the photographs that I took that hopefully shows what I mean:-

If that was moving, the Vietnam memorial was much more powerful. I have seen memorials in England and been to the World War I memorials in Northern France but I have not been moved as much as I was by this. It is a very, very simple; the floor sloped downwards and as it did a black polished stone wall stayed at ground height and displayed 58,260 names of those lost or missing in action during the Vietnam conflict. The wall went into a corner then turned 90 degrees and continued as the floor sloped upwards to the ground above. This is a picture of the Wall going back up with the Washington Memorial at the end.

The most moving part was when I saw a family at the wall on their hands and knees with a piece of paper and a wax crayon. They were doing a 'brass rubbing' of the name of their relative and they were deep in thought. Everyone that walked past them looked and of they didn't have tears in their eyes, then they weren't from Earth. As I walked along a man was walking alongside me and he let go a very deep sigh and said, 'Oh, dear!' I spoke over my shoulder and said that i couldn't have put it better myself and he said, 'I wouldn't mind but I'm a Brit!' 'So am I' was all I could say and neither of us could continue the conversation.

I was acutely conscious that Bob had been badly affected by his experiences in the war in Vietnam and it thus became a place that I felt humbled to be, but needing to get away from so as not to take him back there.

It wasn't all doom and gloom, though. We continued our tour and went up to the Cathedral then down Massachusetts Avenue and passed all the Embassies of various countries, some in pristine condition and other not so (e.g. Iraq) then we left the bus and got back to the hotel.

We the loaded Bob's car and went to his house in Silver Springs, about an hour from the city and had a very pleasant afternoon and evening and a wonderful dinner, with him and Cathy, his lovely wife. He is a wonderful friend and I am delighted to know him. One day they will come across to England and I will show them the real country (even though all he wants to do is go on a train through the 'Chunnel'. He's a heathen and obviously cannot be educated if that is all he wants to do when he comes over!

Washington is a beautiful city that I merely scratched the surface of and would love to come back to. I hope one day to do so. If you get the chance to visit, take it with both hands and enjoy it. I'll finish with some more of my holiday snaps of the city as further 'tasters'.