Friday Night with the Memorials, Part I

I was so ready to be done with work last week, so when 4:30 finally rolled around on Friday afternoon, I got the hell out of the office and headed down to the National Sculpture Garden for "Jazz in the Garden," which is a free event every Friday evening in the summer. The Smithsonian brings in different jazz artists each week, and I wanted to see this Cuban jazz group. It was very festive and crowded, and I hadn't brought a blanket to sit on the bark under the trees around the fountain like all the smart people who clearly had done this before, so I baked in the direct sunlight for an hour, which was about all I could handle. I then wandered past the Old Post Office building on my way to find a quick bite of dinner.

The Old Post Office builidng.

I decided to spend the evening checking out the memorials, and I especially wanted to watch the sun set from the Lincoln Memorial. On my way, I walked past the White House. Thanks to terrorism, you have to stand so far away it's nearly a joke. I put my camera on zoom and took a few pictures.

The Presidents live there!

There was a uniformed officer standing right next to me when I took this picture to deter anyone from walking closer along the chainlink fence.

I can never resist taking another picture (or two) of the Washington Monument, especially when the DC skies are so gorgeous!

The World War II Memorial is really pretty, with a huge fountain and pillars for all the US states. I didn't spend a ton of time here since I wanted to get down to Lincoln before I lost the daylight, but I plan to go back.

The airport is nearby and I kind of enjoyed the contrast of these stately historical monuments with modern aircraft.

The biggest disappointment of the trip has not been the weather, as I anticipated, but the fact that the Reflecting Pool has been drained and is all torn to shit. Apparently, the land the monuments are built on is fill, and the Reflecting Pool had shifted unevenly. I will be coming back someday to see it properly.

Construction as I look toward the Lincoln Memorial.