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WASHINGTON DC
POLITICAL MECCA WELL WORTH WAITED JOURNEY TO UNITED STATES CAPITOL
By PETER THOMAS BUSCH
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he flight from Vancouver took 4 hours 20 minutes on a Boeing 737-8.
At the airport, I found out why you have to get to the airport an extra hour or two earlier for international flights because the walk through the airport from the Canada Line Skytrain Station to the international departure gates takes a long time. I could not sleep well the night before. So, I slept an hour on the plane making the trip feel like the flight only took 3.4 hours.
Once the plane gets passed the mountains of British Columbia and over the Canadian Rockies, the plane kind of follows the tributaries eastward to the Potomac. You know the plane is close to DC when the lush green Virginia Estate farms begin to appear.
Those early American settlers knew where the rich soil for farming tobacco was along the tributaries.
But the location of the Capitol makes even more sense when you consider the coastline and begin to imagine the British naval vessels of King George somewhat sheltered from the ocean currents by anchoring off the coast near the Potomac during the American Revolution.
This place is where a grand new nation was born, first settled by the Native Americans for sure, but embraced by the first Pilgrims arriving from Europe followed by the Imperialists and the first global corporations before everything got thrown asunder into the Revolution. Civil War, and the pressing need to defend freedom and democracy during two world wars and the Cold War were also defining moments of a nation.
The Cold War opposing forces to freedom were seriously aggressive foes with the same intent on expansion as the former empires that had collapsed into independent states following the two world wars.
I landed at the airport and took a sharp left toward the Metro Line that leads to the center of the Capitol.
The DC Metro operates nice, wide and long transit cars running on track between the freeway directional lanes, with large metro stations supporting trains with dozens of cars linked together with the same purpose of moving people effortlessly, perhaps like a regional train normally might.
I bought an unlimited 7 day Metro Pass at the airport kiosk before entering the airport Metro Station and getting on the Silver Line toward DC. I had to take the Silver Line to Metro Central and then take a sharp left ‘real sudden like’ onto the Red Line, like Daniel Day-Lewis in Michael Mann’s The Last of the Mohicans, except the Nathanial character was heading to Kentucky, and I was heading to Washington DC.
I was three hours ahead of schedule for taking breaks, there being a three hour time advance along the Eastern Seaboard. So, I could just casually check in to my hotel room and shower and then head out for a relaxing meal, without the need to take a break after a long travel day.
The sun was setting, so afterward, I headed out to the National Mall. The sun set quick enough, but I just kept walking as the National Mall gradually lit up and became extra fancy at night.
Electric scooters and bikes to rent might be a better idea than the one I had about walking about, because the National Mall is longer and grander than one might imagine. You have to get to Capitol Hill to see where the new presidents get inaugurated on January 20 every four years, except every once in a while, they like to look the other way and hold the swearing in ceremony on the other side.
The grandness in seeing the National Mall for the first time compels you forward and before you know what has occurred you want to continue on passed the Washington Monument and reach the Lincoln Memorial before turning around. The Washington Monument is visible from the Capitol and from quite a few viewpoints throughout DC. And then from there, you can see the Lincoln Memorial. And then you want to also see the Lincoln reflecting pool in reflecting condition.
The Pentagon is closer than expected. You definitely cannot walk there from the Capitol Building. But the Metro Blue Line stops there, just one stop passed the Arlington National Cemetery Metro stop.
Even before you get lost in time walking along the National Mall though, you get a sense of paranoia early on in DC, in those first few minutes on DC ground, that everyone you see may very well be some sort of spy involved in misdirection and misinformation, and that everyone is watching and ready to call you in to some agency and some government of some sort.
Restoration work is underway on several buildings, including on the Capitol Building and the Lincoln Memorial.
The restoration work on the Washington Monument has been complete. The world’s tallest obelisk at 554 feet and 7 inches commemorates the contributions to the national fabric of George Washington as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolution from 1775 to 1784 and as the first president from 1789 to 1797.
The obelisk dominates the skyline as a singular structure striking the center point of the National Mall with other monuments being in the Greco-Roman architectural style with columns adorning single room buildings.
Even the recently completed, Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, the newest monument, is grand but modest. King is there but he does not tower over you. Lincoln is 70 feet in height. The statue dominates the space but remains somehow inviting and embracing to walk up to and take a picture.
Tourists are everywhere even at night with the National Mall open 24/7. But the sites are not overcrowded by any means, nor is the city suffering the consequences of over tourism.
The National Mall may best be seen at night with the place lit up and replicating in eternity off the Lincoln reflecting pool.
Several Metro Stations are kind of pinpoints for places to go. The Gallery-Chinatown Metro Station includes the Capitol Arena and a bit of an Entertainment District with a movie theatre where I saw Oppenheimer on my second afternoon in the city. The district is also home to the National Portrait Gallery and to the Ford Theatre where President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.
The DC Metro has a few color coded commuter lines that merge at several transfer stations, including Metro Center. You can get around from the airport on the metro as well as around and about the DC area. Certain monuments have Metro stations nearby.
Arlington National Cemetery has a metro stop right at the entrance to the cemetery.
Arlington of course has row upon row of respectful small white memorials. The Washington Monument appears in the distance. And within the cemetery, built on the plantation lands once owned by Confederate General Lee, before the Civil War turned and forced Lee and the Confederates a certain distance from Washington, space has been put aside for the family of President John F. Kennedy.
Kennedy was assassinated before the end of his first term in an open top motorcade through Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. Kennedy’s two of four children who died in infancy are buried there beside him, as well as First lady Jacqueline Kennedy who died of non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 1994. Kennedy’s brother Robert F. Kennedy was also assassinated while running for the Democratic presidential nomination on June 6, 1968. Bobby has a small plot on the otherside of a tree adjacent to the JFK eternal flame.
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier has a 24 hour honor guard. The guard changing ceremony occurs in public view with a small auditorium for visitors wishing to take a few moments there in that place.
Further down the Blue Line is the Pentagon 9/11 Memorial.
With Arlington so near the Capitol one does get the sense of a nation battle ready, unabashedly honoring in plain view the men and women who made sacrifices to the greater public good. This theme of honor in service and respect for the fallen is continually reinforced in DC among the larger than life heroes of American history. Aside from Arlington National Cemetery, several independent memorials honor the sacrifice made by Americans during specific wars, such as the Vietnam War Memorial.
I am already on day three in DC. The time disappears really quickly at first with the rush of pop culture images and memories of news reels shot from the Capitol.
Union Market sits just a bit passed the regional train station hub, Union Station, which has an adjacent Metro Station, also called Union Station. Union Market is being developed as a hip new place to live with condos going up everywhere, and coffee shops and restaurants providing stylized food creations such as the smoke salmon bagel with cream cheese I had for breakfast, with a cinnamon cream filled pastry. Union Market itself is filled with specialty restaurants in miniature, with specific places also selling grocery items, such as the butcher shop. But this community hub is not by any means an open public market where farmers sell their freshly made, unique farm products and produce.
But that was all the walking I was prepared to do for the day, after walking from my hotel passed Union Station to Union Market, especially after two days walking about a bit more than a bit, including all day at Arlington National Cemetery and a long walk the first night in and along the National Mall.
I rented a bikeshare for the day from Union Market, and rerouted the National Mall to include the Vietnam War Memorial and the Jefferson Memorial. The Martin Luther King Jr Memorial becomes all the more impressive because you can see the monument dedicated to the Great Civil Rights Leader look back at you across the water from the Jefferson Monument, and the Jefferson Monument from the MLK Monument.
I had seen the National Mall twice now, once at night all lit up with artificial spotlights, and once during the day all ablaze under a big hard sun. I had time before the light changed to stop by the White House. I did not expect to be able to drive up to the front door like on my bikeshare and all, but I was a bit surprised at the layers of fencing that you do not really see ever, you know, on the news reports and in the movies.
Beyond the White House toward the Capitol Building, I discovered that Pennsylvania Avenue has a bike lane in between the directional motor vehicle lanes. This freedom to cycle along this important parade route was wonderful.
The Washington Monument appears almost everywhere. And alongside important places, official refreshment stands and unofficial street vendors offer a cool reprieve from the hot July heat. A lot of ice cream trucks line up one after another for your business as you enter and exit the many museums on either side of the National Mall, or perhaps just when meandering down the National Mall to the next monument.
People are not quite stumbling all over each other – not the crash of over-tourism being experienced in many popular places around the world – but tourists politely line up in a gradual stream so that once you arrive at a monument you get the distinct impression that you can stay for a bit, but the new people arriving need your space eventually. So, move on please.
Before arriving in DC, I had this fanciful idea that I would be able to just sit alone and contemplate a bit at the Lincoln Memorial, the time being so late in the day, sometime passed 11 pm EST. But no, people were there ahead of me, and kept trickling on in when I was there and as I left. A steady stream of many more people arrived and left when I had visited a second time during the day.
Today, being the next day, I took a casual early morning walk to the United States Supreme Court building immediately behind the Capitol Building. Now I know, how and why, the Justices jaunt over to the Capitol Building for the President’s annual State of the Union Address before a Joint Sessions of Congress. The Justices likely take the motorcade though, or a secret Masonic underground passageway from building to building. I doubt very much that the justices walk over to the building through the public courtyards just one city block away and then robe up in the entrance way before entering the Congressional Chambers
I went into the building through the visitors’ entrance, and having thought the nearest café to my hotel was too far away to walk for a quick breakfast, I was happy to find the building’s cafeteria open.
I sat spoon feeding myself a sticky oatmeal and yogurt desert as I waited for the game changer on the bench, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, to walk in with her tray of specially ordered, vitamin loaded organic breakfast snacks. But then, I thought, maybe not.
The courthouse has just one courtroom where all nine Justices preside over mostly handpicked constitutional cases that are able to survive the rigid vetting process that begins already at the lower courts and can sometimes last several year before being heard here.
I then jumped on the Metro at Union Station, which is just a few blocks from the bench of the highest court in the most powerful nation in the world, and spent about one hour at the place of Lincoln’s Assassination on April 14, 1865, just a few weeks after his inauguration for a second term. The Presidential Inauguration is now always on January 20.
Ford Theatre allows access to the theatre as well as a downstairs museum and the rooming house across the street where the mortally wounded Lincoln was taken for his last hours, ultimately dying the next day at 7:22 am. The street between the buildings had already filled up with hundreds of torch bearers showing up in support of the 16th President of the United States before he was brought over.
I then just briskly walked a few blocks over to the National Portrait and American Art Gallery. This three floor museum has two mezzanine layers on the third floor.
The National Portrait Gallery has an impressive collection of paintings, sculptures and photographs organized into historical epochs, such as pre-revolution, post-Civil War and modern. I had unknowingly conditioned my feet on the National Mall, walking for hours that first night, and then my legs, cycling for hours on another day, and another day at Arlington, for the time meandering the many rooms of the original DC Patent House.
The tally at the end of the day suggested that I had taken in the entire gallery in three hours without stopping.
Initially, just being present in DC was quite overwhelming. And I could not really manage the diagonal streets layered around my hotel near the Capitol Building. But yesterday, the layout of DC finally crystalized for me into an easy but secure accessible center for the government workers, politicians, military personal and national security agents participating in shuttle diplomacy of some sort, as well as for the many lobbyists and media flooding into a relatively small area to cover those activities.
For the tourists, admission is free at most venues, but a donation is often encouraged. I had tended to spend a bit of coin for trinkets at the gift shops and for meals at the nearby restaurants and museum cafeterias. I think either way Washington DC gets your vacation money, especially after dropping a bit of coin for the hotel room. And then at check, the hotel tax rounds out the bill.
What is a bit of a hit and miss is that some venues require a timed reservation. Out of the four venues I wanted to visit today, the Capitol Building required a timed reservation. So, I skipped the Capitol for today. And Ford theatre required a timed ticket, but that only resulted in a 30 minute wait in a coffee shop just one block up the street. The Museum of African American History requires a reservation ticket which was unavailable for days at a time. The best practice is to check the museum website to inquire whether a time reservation ticket is necessary so as to avoid disappointment.
I have now gone on-line to reserve a space for a timed visit to the Capitol Building, where only guided tours are allowed. Apparently, I won’t get to visit the legislative gallery where the State of the Union Address is given.
The time release ticket was useful and ultimately necessary at the Library of Congress. This Italian Renaissance building made of marble imported from Italy has exquisite details in the grand hall and staircases, which is then contrasted with the dark red wood of the Round Reading Room.
The Library of Congress has a copy of one of the most important books in the history of humanity, the Gutenberg Bible, that helped spread the word of Jesus Christ by quickly producing more copies of the Bible than the Monks ever could. The Library of Congress (LOC) has one of the 50 or so copies printed in Vellum instead of paper. In the year 1450, paper was almost as rare as animal skin for printing purposes.
I went on a few blocks to the south for lunch. A roast pork sandwich and a pint of amber ale cost $27 USD. But the carefully designed authentic American cuisine lasted me all day long. I had a café mocha for $6.48 USD at the Museum of American Indians. And then I just could no longer resists a soft ice cream cone for $5 USD from one of the many ice-cream trucks lining the streets near the monuments.
I had dinner in Chinatown on two separate occasions at two different restaurants: one plate of sweet and sour pork, and on another occasion, one plate of cashew prawns.
Numerous unofficial unlicensed vendors sell ice cold watered bottle and sports drinks out of picnic coolers near the monuments. Washington DC also has several drinking fountains along the National Mall and at various monuments. The water comes out fresh but not by any means ice cold. On a really hot day, meandering about on a rented bicycle, I loaded up my sports bottle several times. This rehydration saved me from collapse and that awful dehydration sluggishness the next day. Enough water fountains exist along the National Mall for one to begin expecting there to be one, but when the fountain does not work, which only happened once in DC, it is pretty disappointing.
I did try a supersized ice cream sandwich from an official refreshment stand near the Jefferson Monument, but without the water, I likely would have collapsed of extreme thirst on one of the many hidden trails on or about the National Mall.
The National Mall is a long rectangle with the Supreme Court of the United States and the Library of Congress directly behind the Capitol Building. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is just off to the north of the Lincoln memorial, and the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial is to the south, facing the Jefferson Memorial.
The Jefferson Memorial can be seen across the pond from the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial and vice versa. And a bridge behind the Lincoln memorial now joins the National Mall with the Arlington National Cemetery.
The Washington Monument appears in the distance of near every site, including Arlington, during the day under the big hard sun and illuminated in the deep dark night.
The National Archives has on display, under dim light and hard glass, original copies of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. The original writing has become faded over the almost 300 years of looking at the documents. But just seeing them as originals is inspiring, including original drafts of certain important documents with the revisions written overtop.
I have been getting around with a combination of briskly walking, using the Metro to space jump and a city bikeshare that has stations at several monuments, such as the Jefferson Monument and the Lincoln Memorial and other places in and around DC considered tourist sites, such as Union Market.
So getting back to Union Market, which is just passed the regional train station, Union Station, which also has a Metro stop, and a bit of a walk to the north, Union Market is a place to grab a meal inside the market, and also in the nearby streets where there are restaurants and cafés and several condominium developments underway.
At the Union Market bikeshare station, you can get an unlimited, one day pass for $8 USD and then ride for 45 minutes before parking at a station. If you go over 45 minutes, you pay a bit per minute. But then you can park again and then ride again. So rather than hold onto your bike, the bikeshare rules encourage users to park at a station near a monument or museum right away, and then get the next ride restarted at 45 minutes after your visit. I was lucky to find a station one block off from my hotel.
Other bike shares and scooter shares allow you to drop the bike or scooter anywhere within the DC district by using an app. I got lucky today on my way to the Washington National Cathedral, which is up hill form the Metro Station at Woodley Park. An electric bike was at the bikeshare station, and this eased up the ordeal of the uphill climb from the Metro Station to the Cathedral. I was not able to get an electric bike on my way back, but I didn’t need one either, coasting most of the way along a gradual descent.
Before I visited the Cathedral, I had time in the morning to take the guided tour at the Capitol Building with a time reserved ticket I got on-line from the building’s website. Again, entry was free, but the t-shirts and the sticker for my computer cost a bit. I also had a quick snack at the restaurant, as I had not yet had breakfast, not really needing an early one with the time change and all.
The lemon mousse cake was a bit more cake than mousse, and I regretted a bit not having the chocolate (I think it was chocolate, or maybe caramel) cheesecake. The Capitol serves up whole cakes and lets people help themselves to one piece of the pie before heading to the cashier, at which time I still had not realized the mistake in not getting the cheesecake, even though I had laid the slice of lemon mousse on its side. But by this time, I had a lot of American art swirling in my head, after 7 days in DC, and I was slowed down a bit by having to process the images of Americana, let alone the lemon sweet versus cheesecake dilemma with my bitter dark coffee.
No, I did not see former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wondering around the halls of the Capitol Building in a billowing pistachio pink California summer dress.
I spun around under the Capitol Dome after being taken through the National Statutory Hall by the official tour guide, expecting to see President Barack Obama from Chicago posing again, this time in bronze, like the President so often did at press conferences and various presidential announcements, always posing one stage ahead of the actual sculpting process.
I took the self-guided tour of the Cathedral, which included an elevator ride to the 7th floor observation deck, and a look inside the crypt and the many smaller chapels.
The beautiful stained glass windows are filled with both biblical images and modern images.
I had a late lunch at a restaurant just a few blocks from the Cathedral. And then I went back to the Cathedral to catch the sun later in the day, which was casting the limestone in a slightly different light. The Washington National Cathedral is the sixth tallest in the world, and in the same style as the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, but not exactly the identical design.
The trip to the Cathedral was just a short hop on the Metro from the National Mall and then the electric bike ride up the hill, well worth the afternoon in a nice friendly neighborhood to have an early dinner.
The Washington parishioners belong to the Episcopal Church as part of the global Anglican Communion. The Cathedral serves the national agenda, merging civic duty with the love of Jesus Christ and peace for all people. Funerals for national leaders are held at the Cathedral. A special service, a Presidential Prayer Service, was held following the inaugurations of President Barack Obama.
One tiny eccentric fact about food in Washington DC is that cafeterias may not serve a hot breakfast before 11 am and restaurants may not serve dinner before 5 pm.
DC has perfected air conditioning in the hotels and restaurants, galleries and museums. And the QR Code for museum brochures and audio tours are just about everywhere, including the US Air Force Memorial guardhouse on high ground in a triangle between the Pentagon and Arlington National Cemetery.
The National Gallery of Art has three main parts, and then an outdoor sculpture garden with a café that has the best water fountain in all of DC so far. Apart from the air conditioning inside museums and restaurants and cafés, as well as at the end of the day in the hotel room, water fountains are everywhere along the National Mall to the extent that you can count on finding one when you become thirsty. I brought along a reusable water bottle that I use for road cycling, and I must have saved 2 dozen plastic bottles by refilling the reusable sports bottle numerous times at water fountains, including one day when I spent four hours on a bike share along the National Mall.
The National Gallery of Art makes a definitive impression with dozens of masterpieces readily retrievable from the collective consciousness including a room full of Rembrandts, several Turners, a sculpture room full of Edgar Degas and Auguste Rodin sculptures and then a seeming centerpiece, the Leonardo Da Vinci’s Ginevra de Benci. And then Pablo Picasso’s Head of a Woman sculpture. Jackson Pollack, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein are represented in and around featured artist Philip Guston.
I also went to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, and the Catholic University that has a bit of a university town around the campus with good cafés and breakfast establishments. I had classic eggs benedict and a pumpkin spiced latte before I headed over for one of six Masses held during the day at the Basilica.
Before I left Washington DC, I had to have a meal of chili and a half smoked chili dog. And I also had to see the Old Town spread along King’s Street all the way toward the water of the Potomac River.
Alexandria has a nice waterfront lined with pubs and restaurants and outdoor extensions of the restaurants, with the breeze, although a warm breeze, coming off the water. King’s Street is lined with low rise and single story shops that look like they were constructed after the American Revolutionary War, or perhaps what was left after the Civil War a century later.
Washington DC and Alexandria were very much the dividing line between the Unionists of the North and the Confederates to the South.
Arlington National Cemetery was the plantation of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. And only after the Unionist pushed Lee and the Confederates off their land in Washington and Alexandria did the 639 acres become a burial place for the military dead on May 13, 1864.
So, Alexandria is really the Old Town, whereas Washington as the Capital had moved a few times, including Philadelphia and Baltimore, until settling for a spot in and around the National Mall, the obvious center piece for a nation now approaching 250 years of history, and a couple of hundred years before that as settlements that became townships and then colonies, before becoming an independent nation.
