Friday morning was a rainy, windy, chilly morning. We had reservations for a paddle boat on the Tidal Basin, but when we got there we decided it was just not ideal conditions to be out on the water. Brrr! Instead, we decided to take the opportunity to walk around the tidal basin and see the memorials we hadn't seen yet. The bonus was that there were not many people out in the rain, so it wasn't crowded at all.
The Thomas Jefferson Memorial was one of my favorites, I decided. I thought it was very beautiful, and sort of underrated. We were also able to buy an umbrella at the gift shot for Joel, since he didn't bring one with him.
We also enjoyed the FDR memorial, which is a sort of meandering memorial of walls with FDR quotes, and statues. It was fun to see that one with no one around.
The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial was also very cool. There is a small WWI Memorial. I thought it was strange to have such a small memorial for such a big war. It was one of the first memorials built, and it was actually a memorial for the people from the District of Columbia who died in the war.
After our soggy yet very pleasant walk around the tidal basin we decided to go the the National Archives. And so did everyone else, apparently. The line to get in was out the door, down the street, around the corner, and down another street! After a few minutes of waiting in line, a man who worked there was asking if anyone was military; active duty or veteran. We said, "Yes!" and he sent us around to a different entrance, where Joel showed his DD214 to prove he's a veteran, and we got in the door and out of the rain quickly.
The archive were interesting, but everything that was interesting you couldn't take a picture of. We did wait in line to see the original Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights. For me, it is cool to be able to say that we've seen them, but there wasn't much to see. The originals are so faded, they basically looked like old pieces of parchment with nothing on them. Still cool to see them, though.
We went to the Newseum next, which was jam packed with cool stuff. I thought it was interesting how history was sort of presented as how it was reported and how it was put in the news. Just an interesting perspective, I thought. We took a lot of pictures, some of which I've added and will put descriptions with below.
We actually headed back to the hotel early to do a quick load of laundry, and when it was dark we headed back out to see all the memorials at night! We discovered that it's pretty difficult to get good pictures in the dark, but the memorials were so beautiful all lit up. The WWII memorial fountains were especially pretty at night, I thought.
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