13 Jul - Union Station to Washington Monument Area

 

Today we headed out early due to the temps and humidity, back down to the Union Station on the MARC train, and then on foot SW towards the Capitol.  This was our route for today, looking at monuments and sites west of the Capitol.

Even though some of the barricades and fences have come down we still see quite a bit of evidence of the this.

The Peace Monument

Yesterday we saw the back side of the Capitol.  Today we saw the front side.

Looking west towards the Washington Monument

We continued past the Peace Monument to the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial.  These are sure impressive.  

Straight west of the Grant Memorial is the Capitol Reflecting Pool.  Glad to see them make accommodations for the local water fowl!  

South of there we saw the Garfield Monument.

We continued west past the Reflecting Pool, past Union Square and the Native American Veteran's Memorial.  Unfortunately we could not get down into that area as it did not open until 1000 hrs.  

Native American Veteran's Memorial.

Chained off until after 1000 hrs

Someone doing some work on this display

We were glad to see a concession stand ahead of us, but as we arrived we noticed it was closed, as were all of them in this area.  Luckily we brought bottled water to hydrate as the temp and humidity level was rising rapidly by now.

The Smithsonian Museum called "The Castle" - closed.

"Big Brother" is watching.  Cameras, speakers and other surveillance equipment.  There is also a call box on the pole below if you feel threatened.

Finally we arrive at the Washington Monument.  It has been closed for renovations and repairs for many years, but actually opens tomorrow!  They release tickets at 1000 hrs for the following day.  You better be on the keyboard promptly at 1000 hrs, folks!

The Washington Monument "honors George Washington, the hero of our American Revolution and the first president of the United States". This monument was completed in 1884 and was at that time the tallest building in the world. It is over 555 ft tall. The marble blocks it is constructed are held together by gravity and friction only, no mortar! In recent years the monument has been closed in 1964 for restoration, from 1998-2001, in 2011-2014 (to repair damage following an earthquake) and from 2016-2019 to modernize the elevator.

So the time had come we needed to head back towards Union Station.  If we miss the 1215 hrs MARC train the next one is not until 1415 hrs and that would put us back at the campground with Liberty inside for eight hours and that is too much.  

Smithsonian Museum of Natural History - No timed tickets available Jul or Aug

Smithsonian Museum of African-American History - No timed tickets available Jul or Aug

We are amazed at how dead it is here, both vehicular traffic as well as folks on foot.  They are saying on their web sites these museums are back open but you have to have a "timed-entry ticket", but there are almost none available for the next two months.  More about that later.

Here are three things us Midwesterners don't see every day:

A protest of some sort.  I'm not sure the participants even knew what they were protesting about, but it is their right as Americans - have at it!  

Albino squirrels.  I saw one opf these once in Wisconsin but not in Iowa.   This little fella would have eaten out of my hand if I would have tried.  

A pigeon walking around in the train station.  Move along, dude.  No handouts here!

Overall, Doreen (and I) logged 14,906 steps which translated to about 6 miles all before 1400 hrs. 92F now feels like 102F.  After returning to the campground and doing some laundry and walking the dog, she logged over 17,000 steps.  I am so proud of her for her ambition.

So in the evenings we usually work on planning our future adventures and we discovered some disappointing news not long ago.  So I created this big ol' spreadsheet with all the venues, whether they were open or not, dates, times, tickets required, etc etc.  Our situation is complicated by the fact that we are about an hour our of the Capitol area of Washington DC.  It is further complicated by little miss Liberty, who has about a 6'ish hour bladder according to our Vet.  Because of her seizure and other reasons we will not board her at this time.  So our daily planning requires quite a bit of logistics.  That's OK, we can handle all that.  What I was not expecting is that the majority of the venues are either closed completely or opened requiring "timed entry tickets".  So we really needed to figure out the logistics of leaving the campground, traveling downtown by train (the big ol' brown truck is not a commuter in big cities and there is no parking for it), etc before we lock down tickets.  Well, there are hardly any to be had.  The majority of the museums are Smithsonian and they have a nice web site to facilitate  these timed-entry tickets, but they are not available or extremely limited availability.  I prioritized some of the museums I wanted to see and as of now I will see very few if any.  Very disappointing.  .

Bottom line is I would not recommend visiting Washington DC until they get this COVID-related timed ticket garbage resolved.  We still have a lot to see and do here and will find alternative things to see and do rather than the museums, but this is really disappointing.  No Holocaust Museum, No Air and Space Museum, No Natural History or American History Museum.  No National Archives.  No National Postal Museum.  No Capitol tours.  No Whitehouse tours.  No US Treasury.  No US Bureau or Printing and Engraving.  No US Supreme Court.  No National Cryptological Museum.  No Museum of African-American History. Only the Rotunda of the National Archives.

OK, done with my rant.  Tomorrow we visit with Sen Joni Ernst from Iowa