Tourist-ing My Own City

Washington Monument

Sometimes when you live right next to something, you take for granted that it's there and never go explore it. I lived in DC for four years and did get around to many of the museums and monuments, but as soon as I moved to Virginia, my tendency to go into the District and play tourist went down drastically. With the parents in town this weekend, it was a fun opportunity to play tourist and do some new things I had never done before

The day began with a tour of the Capitol, my second one. It was fun touring the capital near the 200-year anniversary of the British burning of Washington during the War of 1812. Each state can send up to two statues to the National Statuary Hall Collection in the Capitol. When I went two years ago, I was most interested in the New Jerseyans (Philip Kearny and Richard Stockton), but this time I was more interested in the Virginians (Robert E. Lee and George Washington), I guess showing that I'm taking on my adoptive state even more.

Fluttering Flags

The other fun activity I had never done before was go to the top of the Washington Monument. I've always loved the Washington Monument--it has a great view of the mall, and the wind beautifully flutters the 50 (or maybe 56, depending on your source) American flags circling its base. Especially with a perfectly blue sky, or even with a stray cloud here and there, it's a view anyone could get into. But I didn't go to the Washington Monument to stay at the base, so it was really enjoyable to take the 70 second elevator ride to the top and see the AMAZING views. And, it's only been reopen for 3ish months, after it was closed because of cracks discovered during the 2011 earthquake.

The view to the East: the Mall, the Capitol, Prince George's County (MD):

The view to the North: the White House, Montgomery County (MD):

The view to the West: World War II Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Rosslyn, and way off in the distance, Tysons Corner:

The view to the South: Jefferson Memorial, National Airport, Potomac River:

Super cool stuff. The elevator ride down was also really interesting, seeing some of the donated stones from states, cities, and organizations. I hadn't known about those, so it was really neat to learn something new about the Washington Monument in the process. Anyway, every now and then it's fun to play novice tourist in your own city. I'm hoping that next time we get to see a few new places, such as Arlington Cemetery, the Pentagon, and Mount Vernon.

To celebrate 'merica on this Labor Day, the unofficial end of summer, here's a cover of one of my favorite summer songs: