Wow, what a weekend...

Pam and I were in NY visiting our son and daughter-in-law and our three grandkids last week, and when we left there we decided to swing by Washington DC to see a couple of things.  According to Doris, that sweat-talking voice in my dashboard (a.k.a. the GPS), it was only a 4 1/2 our drive.  Of course, that was based on a normal weekend -- this one just happened to be the opening weekend for the Cherry Blossom Festival.  Oh well, we were already this far East, besides, how bad can the traffic get this early in the morning.

I think the other 300,000 or so people from NY and NJ who decided to visit DC this weekend also had the same thing in mind.  I can't recall ever being in 4 lanes of stop and go traffic for 6 hours.  Yep, the trip turned into a six-hour endurance test.  Oh well, it was a great day and we never really stopped and sat anywhere. One nice thing is you don't pay by the hour on the NJ turnpike -- just by the mile.

I have seen the Cherry Blossoms before.  During my last assignment in the military, I was technically assigned to the Pentagon, so I was there for two years of that.  Fortunately, almost all of my relatives were able to come over for one of them and share my apartment and see this display.  So, having said that, we didn't spend every second down by the tidal basin.  I wanted to get some general pictures for a slide show I plan to do at our Vets to DC pre-trip dinner.  Below are some pictures from that day.

There were a couple of things that struck me as interesting -- it was remarkable how we could sit in one area for 15-30 minutes and not hear any English being spoken.  I first noticed this when I was stationed here a while ago and would come over to the Mall area to watch people and visit the Memorials.  In a way, it is neat how people who speak other languages (and presumably come from other countries to visit DC) can come here and see this city, these memorials to our heroes, and the winners of our freedoms.  I wonder how many English speaking people visit their capital cities.  Just a thought.

Oh, and one other thing that struck me as interesting.  There had to be close to a half-million people there that weekend, and then there was this one horse-mounted policeman.

Oh yeah, one last thing.  And I don't know why I thought this was interesting.  I don't think it was out of place in DC -- just odd and really funny.  There are lots of people who think that this horse_ _ _ _  is all that really comes out of DC anyway.  You can judge for yourself.

As a former teacher and one who studies history, I always look for a "take-away" when I go somewhere.  Visiting DC, I find myself surrounded by competing points, all worthy "take-aways" in their own right.  And when I spend any time at all in the shadows of these Memorials, I feel humbled, tiny in the scope of their magnitude.  Microscopic in the magnitude of the stories and deeds of those honored here.  I always feel uplifted when I leave here, and play over and over in my mind pictures of these places and the stories they tell.  Having said that, I was reminded of this passage from Psalms 2:10-13:

When wisdom enters your heart, and knowledge is pleasant to your soul,
Discretion will preserve you; Understanding will keep you.
To deliver you from the way of evil, From the man who speaks perverse things,
From those who leave the paths of uprightness to walk in the way of darkness.

Hooah