It’s not that I’m weak on American history, no, that’s not it, I just never mapped some of it out. Apparently, Washington D.C. and its immediate environs are awash in that stuff. Battlegrounds, war sites, the invasion by the British, and so forth.
In my world, I’ll see a truck toting farm equipment or earth moving gear, maybe brush tools. Along the DC highway? Too bad I couldn’t get a picture, but it looked like a six-pounder cannon. Real artillery. Re-enactment? Seems to be a big deal.
Hey, whatever gets them interested in history, works for me.
So we all got on bicycles, and Ryan (Scorpio), toured a group around. This is THE way to see the area, comfortable, easy, painless.
Sweated like a pig as it was just like Houston, humid, wet, hot. Front lawn of the White House, the Executive Branch, the Lincoln, Jefferson, etc, Korean War memorial and the controversial Vietnam War memorial, then Full Moon, reflecting pool, and the FDR monument.
That one touched me the most. In part, because my father had polio and was at Warm
Springs with FDR.
Probably our last king, and maybe that’s a good thing. Still, it helped when things were bad.
Wobbling around the sidewalks, ricocheting off pedestrians and walls, like a pinball in a machine? Getting an abbreviated verbal snapshot of the history and trivia of each of the monuments? Excellent three hours. Best way to see DC in hurry, and yet effortlessly.
If there was a problem, despite an advanced degree, the tour guide missed some subtleties about history and politics. As a Pennsylvania-Dutch Anglophile, though, he was remarkably well-informed.
We tipped well, and I was surprised, he didn’t know the capital building in Texas, our pink dome? It’s seven feet taller than the one in Washington.