Ok, my favorite thing about DC is the Metro. Seriously this is soooo cool. I want one here in Longview, which won't EVER be possible but it would be REALLY awesome. Especially today when snow paralyzes the city. As of right now, I'm stuck on the hill.....cleaning, updating my address (another post...) and avoiding cleaning by playing on the internet! yea!!
My first day was spent at Arlington National Cemetery. The one thought that constantly overwhelmed by mind was, "It's so big. There are so many..." This cemetery is HUGE. There are so many tombstones. It was overwhelming. I walked through extremely humbled and reminded how heartbreakingly true the phrase, "Freedom is not free", is. Each perfectly manufactured stone represented a life willingly given so that we may live in the country we do as we do. We can make choices of what to believe on many levels and have the freedom and the legal rights to do so because of the lives given over and over again.
Their valor is your heritage.
Not for fame or reward
Not for place or for rank
Not lured by ambition
Or goaded by necessity
But in simple
Obedience to duty
As they understood it
These men suffered all
Sacrificed all
Dared all
And died.
Randolph Harrison McKim
Not for place or for rank
Not lured by ambition
Or goaded by necessity
But in simple
Obedience to duty
As they understood it
These men suffered all
Sacrificed all
Dared all
And died.
Randolph Harrison McKim
I struggled with a migraine the first couple days of the trip and that limited my time at various places. But I still saw plenty more so let me share a few highlights and pictures.
Smithsonian: Huge and massive museums with almost anything and everything you can imagine. My favorite was the American Indian Museum, though the Air & Space Museum was interesting. "It's human nature to stretch, to go, to see, to understand. Exploration is not a choice, really it's an imperative." - Michael Collins (Apollo 11 Astronaut)
Holocaust Museum: For the dead and the living we must bear witness. Elie Wiesel. I didn't even see this entire museum but what I did see was enough. There was a quote that I say that embodies what I took from this time: "Out of our memory...of the Holocaust we must forge an unshakable oath with all civilized people that never again will the world stand silent. Never again will the world...fail to act in time to prevent this terrible crime of genocide... we must harness the outrage of our own memories to stamp out oppression wherever it exists." Jimmy Carter. Add that to this: "Here we will learn that each of us bears responsibility for our actions and for our failure to act." George Bush. We are responsible for what we do. We are responsible for what we don't do when we should do something. We need to remember that.
We went to all the various other memorials (Lincoln, Jefferson, FDR, Vietnam, Korea, Police), even toured the capital building. And here's my one question. Why so big? I know we need to commemorate all these great people. But why are those things built to outlast them and to help us remember so MASSIVE? Just wondering....
Some quotes from the FDR memorial:
FREEDOM OF SPEECH
FREEDOM OF WORSHIP
FREEDOM FROM WANT
FREEDOM FROM FEAR
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith.
**Amen and amen. We are so caught up in focusing on what we can't do and what makes us uncomfortable that we are frozen in our tracks. Even the place of indecision (which I know I find myself in sometimes) grabs our feet and our mind and we don't do anything. We just wait for something to happen or change in order to make our decision easier. To make it clear what decision we should make. An interesting human tendency.
Oh and probably one of the coolest museums was the International Spy Museum. It's crazy cool where you can hide various spy tools in normal everyday things.
Smithsonian: Huge and massive museums with almost anything and everything you can imagine. My favorite was the American Indian Museum, though the Air & Space Museum was interesting. "It's human nature to stretch, to go, to see, to understand. Exploration is not a choice, really it's an imperative." - Michael Collins (Apollo 11 Astronaut)
Holocaust Museum: For the dead and the living we must bear witness. Elie Wiesel. I didn't even see this entire museum but what I did see was enough. There was a quote that I say that embodies what I took from this time: "Out of our memory...of the Holocaust we must forge an unshakable oath with all civilized people that never again will the world stand silent. Never again will the world...fail to act in time to prevent this terrible crime of genocide... we must harness the outrage of our own memories to stamp out oppression wherever it exists." Jimmy Carter. Add that to this: "Here we will learn that each of us bears responsibility for our actions and for our failure to act." George Bush. We are responsible for what we do. We are responsible for what we don't do when we should do something. We need to remember that.
We went to all the various other memorials (Lincoln, Jefferson, FDR, Vietnam, Korea, Police), even toured the capital building. And here's my one question. Why so big? I know we need to commemorate all these great people. But why are those things built to outlast them and to help us remember so MASSIVE? Just wondering....
Some quotes from the FDR memorial:
FREEDOM OF SPEECH
FREEDOM OF WORSHIP
FREEDOM FROM WANT
FREEDOM FROM FEAR
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith.
**Amen and amen. We are so caught up in focusing on what we can't do and what makes us uncomfortable that we are frozen in our tracks. Even the place of indecision (which I know I find myself in sometimes) grabs our feet and our mind and we don't do anything. We just wait for something to happen or change in order to make our decision easier. To make it clear what decision we should make. An interesting human tendency.
Oh and probably one of the coolest museums was the International Spy Museum. It's crazy cool where you can hide various spy tools in normal everyday things.
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