Midnight Stroll Through the Memorials

I am lucky enough to have some family in DC. After a delicious home-cooked meal one Friday night They offered to take me around the memorials. It's a bit embarrassing that in the two months I had been in Washington at that point, I had not ventured down to see Lincoln, the war monuments, MLK, FDR, or Jefferson. My family insisted that this be ameliorated.

So, off we went, down FDR drive, parking on the side of the road near Lincoln, our first stop.

Though the memorial is massive the statue of Lincoln, himself, is smaller than I had imagined. The steps of the Lincoln Memorial were packed with crowds of people, small children with their parents, school groups taking pictures, couples walking hand in hand. Surprisingly, the best part of the memorial is behind the memorial. The steps wrap around the back of the building, where few people go. The quiet is starting.


The World War Two Memorial was beautifully lit. The area is circular, surrounded by columns with the names of states. I was surprised to find a few other names there as well:

Hawaii, DC, American Samoa, and Guam were not states during WWII

The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial was stark white, and massive. The stone from which the sculpture of Dr. King emerges was cut from a larger mountain of stone. The removed rock left a pathway between the stone it came from, now used as the entrance to the monument. Appropriately etched into King's statue is, "Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope."

The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial was my favorite. The memorial is essential a long walk through FDR's three terms in the White House. It features stone walls in varying states of order and chaos, lots of waterfalls, and beautiful bronze statues. These Statues are of people during the great depression. 

The Jefferson Memorial was a trek. We had to drive to it instead of walk, and then missed the turn twice! The statue of Jefferson is surrounded by four passages of his writing.

 My favorite panel says,

"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."- Thomas Jefferson

I spent over two hours wandering around the memorials. It was two hours very well spent.

-Alice