we had one full day to see as much of the national mall as we could, so we tried to get going as early as possible. our first order of business was moving to a hotel that we could afford in order to stay in dc for another night. but it was in a good place to start — embassy row near dupont circle.

jason and i took turns taking photos with my camera. so settle in, because i have plenty to share. (we walked for approximately 6 hours and estimate that we covered about 10 miles.)

we took a “wrong” turn down new hampshire and happened across this manhole cover dedicated to sonny bono. it was placed in front of a tiny patch of dirt that had one small bench. so random. but interesting and worth a photo anyway.

does he have two tickets to that thing that i love?

squirrel in the foreground was trying to find somewhere to bury his food.

again: sorta random.

not cherry blossoms — just really pretty.

our “wrong” turn down new hampshire brought us right past albert einstein, so we stopped to say hello.

i was most excited to finally see the lincoln memorial. i remember very little of my trip to dc in 2004, but i know i didn’t get to see the sights — lincoln, reflecting pool, and so on. i only recall walking past the white house and seeing the washington monument from a distance. and the capitol building.

we took a detour around the backside of the memorial, while we entertained the idea of walking across the potomac to see arlington national cemetery. (which we did not do.)

it was the saddest moment of the day when we discovered that the reflecting pool was under construction! and it has been since 2010. lame. how many other tourists’ photos have been ruined, i wonder?

but at least i got to see abe.

i love the scale of this photo. jason is 6’1″.

then we wandered to go see some war memorials. first: vietnam.

there were two books to help locate the names of lost loved ones on the walls of the memorial.

it was awesome to see all of the proud vets that were touring the memorials — of all ages. next we saw the korean war memorial.

thank you, veterans.

on to see martin luther king, jr.

across the water was another destination point: the jefferson memorial.

we ran into the franklin delano roosevelt memorial first. it’s quite the memorial — a whole timeline of his time in office!

jason thought i didn’t look poor enough to fit in with these guys. but i was starting to get a little hungry around this time…

clearly, jason was taking all of the photos in this memorial. (otherwise i’m never in the photos i have to share at the end of a trip.)

i’m still not sure what this is — it was on the columns lining a bridge we crossed to get to the jefferson memorial.

my feet were absolutely killing me by the time we got here so i was very happy to find an open bench for a moment. (this was about our halfway point.)

cherries!

despite my aching feet, we trudged on. i mean, what other choice did i have, really? we got back to the national mall and happened upon the washington monument. it’s amazingly large! and actually made me feel quite dizzy, looking up at the top of it with all of the puffy, white clouds passing by.

this is as close as we got to the capitol building. next time we visit dc, we are planning to see the eastern end of the national mall. and more museums! though this wasn’t the end of our day, i’m going to pause here for now (similar to how i wanted to just lay down and fall asleep on the grass of the mall)… more soon!