Driver, Where You Taking Us? (Washington DC In A Hell Of A Hurry)

Last week we lit out from Louisville around noon on Friday, bound for Washington D.C. Sixty-two hours later we pulled back into the driveway, tired, sunburnt, and thoroughly adventured.

According to the electronic oracle we consulted the drive was nine hours but both legs of the trip came in closer to eleven hours. I guess Google has never had to stop for petrol or piss breaks...

The drive was pretty much all highway, going up and down the Appalachian Mountains through Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia before leveling out as we approached DC. Lots of 5-7% grades and runaway truck ramps, with ears popping endlessly. Scenic country though.

We stayed at an airbnb on O Street in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of DC. We rolled into town after dark Friday night and I was quite glad it was kinda late, traffic was light and we made it to our accommodations without difficulty. Would not have wanted to attempt that during rush hour though, DC traffic is no joke.

It's a vibrant and fun neighborhood, lots of shops and stores and lovely smells. Embassy Row is there as well, we saw the Indonesian and Portuguese embassies while out wandering a couple blocks from our airbnb.

The main reason we were in town was Saturday's March On For Voting Rights. (For more on that see this post) Where we stayed was just a twenty minute hike from the assembly point for the march so Saturday morning we just strolled on down to McPherson Square after grabbing some coffee.

You haven't had a proper visit to DC if you haven't had a street vender try to sell you something at least once. This trip didn't disappoint, with any protest related regalia that you might have forgotten to bring available for purchase. Buttons, hats, shirts, flags, their wares were as varied as the crowds perusing them. Later, as we marched, men lugging coolers and pushing shopping carts full of water hawked 'brain freeze cold water' to the hot and thirsty marchers. Business was brisk to say the least.

By the time the march started at 10 it was already hot and it only got hotter as time passed. I think the heat index was a degree or two shy of 100F. We definitely appreciated every little bit of shade we found.

The march eventually made its way to the Mall for a rally. The crowd wanted no part of the sun and kept to the shelter of the trees along the sides of the Mall.

After we'd drank plenty of water and gotten good and rallified we moseyed on to see what else we could see.

First thing we saw was the nation's most recognizable phallic symbol, er...the Washington Monument. Flags were at half staff for the recent casualties in Afghanistan. From one side you could look out and see the rally we'd just left and beyond it the U.S. Capitol. On the opposite side you could look out on the WWII Memorial and beyond it the Reflecting Pool and the Lincoln Memorial.

We stopped and paid our respects at the World War II Memorial before making our way along the Reflecting Pool to the Lincoln Memorial.

There was another rally taking place on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, this one with several people from Louisville speaking. Fifty-eight years earlier, on that very spot, Martin Luther King Jr gave his 'I Have A Dream' speech.

From the Lincoln Memorial we made our way to the Vietnam Wall (Vietnam Veterans Memorial). You can see some B&W photos I posted earlier of the Wall here.

My travel and pandemic partner had had a MIA bracelet in high school with a soldier from the Vietnam War's name on it so we found their name in the book in the photo above and then located it on the wall itself.

Michael L Batt (more info here) was a passenger on a military flight that went missing in March of 1969.

By the time we'd taken all this in we were sunburnt, sore, and short of sustenance so we started making our way back to our accommodations. On the walk back we passed a good number of tents set up in parks and along sidewalks but the one above really caught my eye. It's set up by the intersection with K Street which is ground zero for lobbying and advocacy groups in Washington DC.

We also passed through the Golden Triangle neighborhood, which is apparently not the same as the one that used to produce most of the world's heroin.

After getting back and taking a minute to wash the sweat off of us we wandered over to P Street in search of vittles. P Street smelled like six different kinds of tasty and there were at least that many different restaurants trying to lure us in. Parts of the street were even blocked off to allow outdoor dining but we eventually settled on getting sushi to go from a place called Sakana.

We took our sushi to the park which gives the neighborhood its name and people watched while enjoying our sushi. I'd left my camera back in the room and so have no photos to show you of the occasional parade of costumed people who periodically strolled through the park but it definitely made people watching interesting.

We took in the park until dark settled in and then called it an evening, we had another long day ahead of us. After coffee the next morning we headed back towards the Mall, this time driving. Along the way I got to give the ol' one finger salute to the former guy's hotel in DC. From what one of the locals told me, the place has been a bit of a ghost town since Jan. 7th.

After driving by the Old Post Office and the Capitol we parked on Independence Ave and made our way to the Hirshhorn Museum. The photo above is of some of the interior walls of the building, reminded me of a nice cross between the old Soviet/Brutalist style and that of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Half the federal buildings in DC probably fit that description now that I think of it.

Inside the Hirshhorn we took in BARBARA KRUGER: BELIEF+DOUBT and MARK BRADFORD: PICKETT’S CHARGE

The Belief + Doubt exhibit is text based while the Pickett's Charge exhibit draws from Paul Philippoteaux’s nineteenth-century cyclorama depicting Pickett's Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg to make 400 linear feet of abstract painting.

Broken up into eight panels arrayed in a circle it was something to see, especially for an old Civil War buff like me. We also caught most of Marcel Duchamp: The Barbara and Aaron Levine Collection before meeting up with an old friend of mine and grabbing some lunch.

My friend had been supposed to join us for the march the previous day but a run in with a tablesaw had nearly cost him his eye so we rendezvoused Sunday instead. The streets crossing the Mall were lined with food trucks. Most were selling generic tourist fare and we strolled past those until we came to one selling Indonesian food, which I'd never had before.

While waiting for our mie goreng and kebabs to cook (they were cooked to order so it took about 20 minutes) we noticed the sight above. While I'm no fan of the CCP I'm a bit baffled as to how that came to be before me.

Once we got our food we had a tasty little picnic on the Mall and then set out to get one last bit of sightseeing in before heading back to Kentucky. We could hardly visit Washington DC and not at least pay a brief visit to the scene of the crime so we headed there.

What crime you ask? Take your pick, the U.S. Capitol has seen plenty enough, no need to name names. After shooting the Capitol for a bit we parted ways with my friend and made our way back to the car and Kentucky.

Aside from some rather active cops in West Virginia and the car telling us "take the next right to merge on to I-495. Rest in peace" the drive back was uneventful. Eleven hours later we walked in the door to two rather surprised and put out cats. Now to figure out where to adventure next...