Last week I got to go to Washington, D.C. for a day. There were four of us that went — from South Carolina, where I’m with the DiMarias. Geno DiMaria and I have been working together on a video contract for the U.S. Court System Dept. of Public Affairs. Along those lines, Washington wanted to meet with Geno. Mr. DiMaria also had some business to attend to there for his job, so on Wednesday, December 7, we all took a road trip to our nation’s capitol.
John DiMaria — the youngest of the DiMaria brothers — came along. He and I hit the Washington streets Thursday morning on a grand adventure to see as much as we could in a single day.
The first place I wanted to go was Arlington National Cemetery. Our hotel was practically on Capitol Hill, which was super nice, but we still had four miles to walk from there to Arlington. The goal was to be at the 9:00 changing of the guard ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns, but when we were just walking up to the visitor’s center at 8:57, we knew we wouldn’t make it. So we went here instead:
It’s been about 14 years, I think, since I’ve been to Washington. The first time I went, we didn’t make it across the Potomac to either Arlington or the U.S. Marine Corps Iwo Jima Memorial. The Iwo Memorial was quite a bit larger than I had expected it to be — I was thinking statues that were life-size. They were larger than life. Just the day before visiting it, I had finished reading Flags of Our Fathers, the story of the flag raising (did you know that it was just a replacement flag being raised?), written by the son of one of the flag raisers.
John and I had to hightail it back if we were to make the 10:00 changing of the guard back in Arlington National Cemetery. So we left, and trekked our way through the most beautiful cemetery I’ve ever seen. There’s an inevitable sense of awe that comes when you’re standing in that cemetery, completely surrounded by headstones of men who fought for your freedom… As far as you can look in any direction. Freedom is costly.
We did make it to the changing of the guard ceremony. It was amazing. Silence reigns during the ceremony, out of respect and honor for the unknown fallen soldiers buried there. The only sounds are the snapping of military dress shoes into position, the few commands issued from the officer conducting the ceremony, taps being played. Very moving.
From Arlington, John and I crossed the Potomac again, and visited the Korean War Veterans Memorial:
The Korean War has become an area of interest for me lately, as I’m researching it for a story idea.
We visited Mr. Lincoln next:
From there, it was on to the Vietnam War Veterans Memorial, the White House (no, we didn’t go in), the Smithsonian Institute Building (“The Castle”), and the Smithsonian Museum of American History.
This is John while we rested our feet outside the museum after going through three exhibits:
John and I had a blast together, despite the fact that we spent most of our time walking. “We’re almost there, John,” almost became a joke, I said it so many times. Seriously, we got to see nine different sites in D.C. within the space of nine hours. When we got home on Friday I mapped our route on Google. We walked at least 16 miles during the day.
This was part of our route (click to enlarge):
From waypoint “K” (Museum of American History), we walked back to the Capitol and around it. We came up to the capitol just as golden hour was beginning. We paused for a few minutes in several places to take photos.
I was expecting to shoot a ton of photos in Washington. Walking took up most of the shooting time, I guess — ended up with 48 digital photos and 19 film exposures. Besides so much walking accounting for so few pictures, I think being in the shooting-film mindset — you only make a photograph if it’s really worth making — accounts for the rest of it. I do wish I had shot more photos in Arlington, though.
We arrived back home in South Carolina Friday night (December 9). It was a short but great trip — I’m so glad I got to go along!
This entry was posted by chadstembridge on Monday, December 12th, 2011 at 8:00 am and is categorized under All, Happenings, Photos and tagged as arlington, capitol, iwo jima memorial, korean war memorial, lincoln memorial, roadtrip, vietnam memorial, washington d.c.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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Here's what people are saying:
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Yeah, no kidding… We’ll have to go back sometime so we can see the sites together.
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Sounds like an amazing adventure! And we who know your incredible navigational skills can see how amazing all this is!
Just kidding! But it does sound like a lot of fun! I’ve been having HUGE waves of homesickness for Annapolis lately. You were so close…
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Well, Sage, I do have to confess that for the first couple miles, though I knew the general direction we needed to be going, we were pretty close to getting lost. Hooray for map kiosks and John’s iPod camera!
It’s such a beautiful part of the country, isn’t it? Northern Virginia is so pretty… I’m sure Maryland’s like that too.
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chadstembridge 
sage 
December 12, 2011 at 6:20 pm
‘Twas a fun trip! Wish I could’ve spent more time with you guys checking out the sites…