Time to explore Washington DC. On our first full day we were heading over towards the Washington Monument and taking a hike around that big lake, the one that Captain America was running around in Winter Soldier. I wanted to see the Massive Lincoln as well. This is the DC we see in all the films and on the telly. The Washington Monument (above) might not be a particularly interesting subject to draw, basically being a gigantic version of Cleopatra’s Needle the size of a skyscraper, but it’s a quick thing to draw so I sketched it while we rested our feet on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial. It’s a long walk round that lake you know. I had wanted to get up and run around it saying “on your left”, but I’ve been a bit lazy with the running since my 10k last November, so I didn’t do that. The day started out quite cool, but it was sunny and warmed up to a very springing day, and my face even caught a bit too much sun. The cherry blossoms were maybe not as pink as my sketchbook page shows, but that’s how my eyes saw them, optimistically. Give them a few more days and they’d have been brighter, but right now they were just starting to bloom. The splashes of pink added some contrast to this serene and austere environment, and a lot of people were out wearing pink as well, I know a lot of people came here specifically for the blossoms. Incidentally I didn’t see anywhere near as many of ‘those’ hats as expected, at least not on anyone’s heads. Quite a few being sold cheap by street hawkers, but the only one I saw an actual person wearing was when a guy put one on for a selfie by the Washington Monument before quickly putting it back into his bag. Indeed. We didn’t go up the Monument (I’ve seen Spider-Man: Homecoming, that’s close enough for me) but it really is massive. I did get a stamp though for my sketchbook. I didn’t sketch the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, but I have to say I really loved that place. Jefferson’s statue is pretty huge, but no more lofty than the ideals and proclamations written around the interior of the building. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” When you are in there, you really feel it, like this is a monument to those great ideas themselves that Americans all know (or rather, should know), as much as to the man. We took a lot of photos, but we had a long walk yet around the Tidal Basin so we moved on.

I really enjoyed seeing the Monument to Martin Luther King Jr. It was a way past the FDR Memorial. This only opened in 2011, and shows a sculpture of Dr. King emerging from the rock, designed by Lei Yixin. The National Park Service manages all these (long may they continue, long live the National Parks!) so I got the little stamp. I sketched fast in pencil, we were getting hungry. There are many of Dr. King’s quotes around the memorial, great words such as “We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” It was genuinely inspiring. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere“. This monument was unveiled on the anniversary of Dr. King’s “I Have A Dream” speech which was of course given here in Washington DC at the Lincoln Memorial, and we were headed there next.

On the way there, we passed the Korean War Veterans Memorial, which was very poignant. On the other side of the Reflecting Pool was the Vietnam veterans Memorial, even more so. All the names of those soldiers who died in that conflict were engraved in order of when they fell, and gave me a chill. I didn’t grow up here, but as a kid in Britain the impact of that war was clear on so much American popular culture. We had a snack nearby, and finally went up the Lincoln Memorial. It is at the top of a steep staircase, looking down the long Pool towards the Washington Memorial and down to the Capitol Building; you know the view, it’s pretty famous. Inside is the massive statue of Abraham Lincoln, one of the most famous American Presidents. A lot of people were in here to get a look at him, sitting on what looks like Thanos’s floating throne. You gotta love Lincoln. Even without his big hat you’d recognize him from his beard. Inside the Memorial written on the walls are the words of his most famous speeches, the Gettysburg Address and the other one, from his second Inauguration. “With malice toward none, with charity for all…” It had been a long day. We decided to walk back to the hotel and rest those exhausted legs, and only stopped to catch a view of the distant White House far behind barriers and armed vehicles. I was glad for the deep bathtub, and for the hearty southern-style meal we had that night.

I got up early next morning, and did some sketching before breakfast. It was raining a little, but not too bad. I walked back down to Capitol Mall, which was mostly empty, and stood in the middle with a great view of the Capitol Building. This was as close as I got, it is very big. Reminded me of the Capitol Records logo; also reminded of that bloody awful day on January 6th 2021, a low point. This place has seen some history, has it not. I took a couple of photos for passing tourists, but it was a pretty quiet morning overall. All around me there were the buildings of the Smithsonian Museum, our destination that day, and the thing I was most most excited about coming to DC for. You have to see the Monuments, but I was here to see the stuff, and I mostly wanted to see planes, spaceships and dinosaurs. More on that next time. But before we did, we stopped into the building below, the National Archives. I sketched from across the street until it started raining a bit more (then I finished it up later at the hotel), but we came in after breakfast to take a look at one thing only – the United States Constitution. And the Bill of Rights, that’s two things. The actual Constitution itself, and the actual Bill of Rights, housed in their own special rotunda decorated with paintings of the great acts, the signing of the Constitution and the other one, the Declaration of Independence, because that actual document is also in here. Three things, that’s three things we came to see. The ‘Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom’. We didn’t stay too long, you’re not allowed to spend time trying to read them, it was a little crowded and we needed a bit of air and some space, so we left and walked over to the National Air and Space Museum.