Sunday, June 16, 2013

#1a - Washington, DC - Part 2

Labor Day weekend 2007.

That weekend was also known as the weekend I turned 20. I had just finished my last summer at YCamp, started my junior year of college, and had moved in with a new roommate, Emily. I tossed around the idea of visiting the monuments in DC for a while. I had the opportunity several years prior to tour the World War II Memorial before its official opening to the public because of the job my dad had at the time. That trip reawakened my desire to truly tour the monuments that I lived within an hour of my entire life. I got a few friends together, we drove to the closest Metro station, and made our way down to DC.

We stopped at a few monuments and took the traditional pictures. I stood where Martin Luther King, Jr. stood and let myself dream of what it must have been like for him to stand on that spot and deliver the speech for which he would forever be remembered and would inspire millions of people. I stood in awe of the size of Abraham Lincoln and thought of how what he fought for would resonate in MLK's speech. It was humbling to read the words of the Gettysburg Address which really put into perspective the magical history of the United States. I felt incredibly patriotic reading the words of the Declaration of Independence at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial.



After the history lesson, we headed over to the Smithsonian Museums. We trekked past The White House and admired it from far away. We ended up only making it to the National Museum of American History, but that was honestly probably all the museum time I could take. We checked out all of the fabulous jewels and realized we could fake try them on using the reflections of the jewelry on their glass enclosures. Then we headed over to an exhibit of photographs. There were beautiful pictures of animals that I could only dream of capturing on my own.



I've been back to the monuments since and never get tired of visiting them. I tend to take for granted that I'm a $5 dollar ride from so many iconic buildings and that some people plan entire vacations around visiting them. There are plenty of museums left for me to visit. I think a day trip will need to be planned for this summer.

Per usual, you can click on the link to the side to view my album of pictures. I apologize in advance for the quality of the pictures of the expensive jewels. My camera is not the best one out there and even though I took a photography class in high school, I never really got the hang of taking great pictures. I'd also like to warn you that I look terrible in the pictures. My summer camp job left me with horrendous and multiple levels of tan lines, plus that birthday was around my heaviest weight. My roommate Emily was a big motivation for me to lose weight because as you'll see, she's tiny.

1 comment:

  1. Um... is it weird that when I think back to memories around this time/before it that I picture us way more similar to how we look now versus how we actually looked then?! Yeah probably is weird, oh well. As always, love your blog!

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