Sept 10 Day 9

Today will had a short ride from Newark Delaware, to Alexandria Virginia. Once in Alexandria, we spent the remainder of the day touring D.C. and its many monuments with Lennie's niece.

Another new state to check off on our "all states" list.

We passed the home of the Ravens! Believe it or not, tomorrow the Steelers will be here to play the Ravens... WOW, our two favorite teams in one location :)

After a short pass across Maryland, we make our way into Virginia.

We checked into our hotel, and emptied the trailer. Shortly after arriving, Lennie's niece stopped by the hotel to meet us. She had never ridden on our Goldwing, so I took her for a quick 20 minute ride around town. The weather was wonderful, and I think she enjoyed the ride.

We left the wing at the hotel for the remainder of the day, as Lennie's niece Stacey showed us around D.C. in her car. Stacey has lived in the D.C. area for a number of years and was a wonderful host. She was able to navigate the D.C. traffic with ease, and knew the interesting sights to see. She also took us to lunch and dinner at some great local eating spots.

Our first stop was at the new Pentagon 9-11 Memorial. Tomorrow is actually the 10th anniversary of 9-11, and workers were setting up huge tents for tomorrows events.

The Pentagon Memorial is pretty unique. For each person who was lost in the Pentagon crash, there is a bench that looks much like a plane wing. Some of the wings point toward the Pentagon building indicating that person was working in the structure when the crash occurred. Other wings point away from the Pentagon building, indicating that person was on board the aircraft when the crash occurred. Each of the wings acts as a bench where family members can sit and reflect. Speaking of reflect, under each wing/bench is a water fountain/pool, and the daylight reflects off of the water onto the underside of the wing/bench. You can see the water reflection in the photo below.

I have no pictures of the Pentagon building itself, as photos are NOT allowed. There were signs posted all around the building, and what appeared to be snipers on the building rooftop during our visit. I would not expect to get shot for taking photos, but I am sure that someone would likely yell at anyone doing so.

Below is a shot of the front of the White House at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I was surprised to see that you could still get this close, even on the anniversary of 9-11. I would have expected that the government would block off the roads closer to some of these buildings for the weekend. Instead, there were armed military and police walking the streets in the area.

Here is a shot of the back side of the White House. A closer look on the roof shows two men in black, my guess, they are armed. :)

Next, it was on to the capital building. Again, you could get access right up to the building, but armed folks were always on the watch.

Another shot of the capital building at night.

Next, we made visits to most of the memorial in the downtown area. First stop, the Jefferson Memorial. Construction on the memorial began in 1939, the building was completed in 1943, and the bronze statue of Jefferson was added in 1947.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial is now open as well. Covering four acres, the memorial opened to the public on August 22, 2011, after more than two decades of planning, fund-raising and construction. A ceremony dedicating the Memorial was scheduled for Sunday, August 28, 2011, the 48th anniversary of the "I Have a Dream" speech that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, but was postponed until October 16 due to Hurricane Irene.

King is one of only four people who have memorials in the D.C. mall area and never served as the president.

There were many delays, and even some controversy during the making of the memorial. In 2001, the foundation's efforts to build the memorial were stalled because Intellectual Properties Management Inc., an organization operated by King's family, wanted the foundation to pay licensing fees to use his name and likeness in marketing campaigns. The memorial's foundation, beset by delays and a languid pace of donations, stated that "the last thing it needs is to pay an onerous fee to the King family." Joseph Lowery, past president of the King-founded Southern Christian Leadership Conference stated in the The Washington Post, "If nobody's going to make money off of it, why should anyone get a fee?" Cambridge University historian David Garrow, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his biography of King, said of King's family's behavior, "One would think any family would be so thrilled to have their forefather celebrated and memorialized in D.C. that it would never dawn on them to ask for a penny." He added that King would have been "absolutely scandalized by the profiteering behavior of his children." The family pledged that any money derived would go back to the King Center's charitable efforts.

The foundation has paid various fees to the King family's Intellectual Properties Management Inc., including a management fee of $71,700 in 2003. In 2009, the Associated Press revealed that the King family had negotiated an $800,000 licensing deal with the foundation for the use of King's words and image in fundraising materials for the memorial.

Next, a stop at the WWII Memorial. Consisting of 56 pillars and a pair of arches surrounding a plaza and fountain, it is located on the National Mall, on the former site of the Rainbow Pool at the eastern end of the Reflecting Pool, between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument.

It opened to the public on April 29, 2004, and was dedicated by President George W. Bush on May 29, 2004, two days before Memorial Day. Like the memorials in this area, this memorial is administered by the National Park Service under its National Mall and Memorial Parks group. More than 4.4 million people visit the memorial each year.

This is a shot looking up into one of the arches at the WWI Memorial. I can't remember if this is the Pacific arch, or the Atlantic arch.

Here's a shot of the Washington monument taken from the Lincoln Memorial. You can see that the reflecting pool is torn out as construction is underway.

Using funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, theNational Park Service is reconstructing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. The pool's water supply system is being updated to eliminate stagnant water by circulating water from the Tidal Basin; the pool was formerly filled using potable water from the city. Paved walking paths will be added to the north and south sides of the pool to replace worn grass and to prevent further erosion. Construction on the 18-month, $30.7 million project began in November 2010. In May 2011, workers began sinking the first of 2,113 wood pilings into a 40-foot deep layer of soft, marshy river clay and some dredged material atop bedrock to support a new pool. I did not see any mention of the targeted completion date.

Next was the Vietnam Wall Memorial. It is sunken into a slight hillside and covers a huge area of lawn.

The memorial currently consists of three separate parts: the Three Soldiers statue, the Vietnam Women's Memorial, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, which is the best-known part of the memorial. The main part of the memorial, which was completed in 1982, is in Constitution Gardens adjacent to the National Mall, just northeast of the Lincoln Memorial. The Memorial Wall was designed by American architect Maya Lin, and contains 58,195 names of those lost during the war.

Another shot of the sunken Vietnam Wall Memorial.

The Vietnam Women's Memorial is a memorial dedicated to the women of the United States who served in the Vietnam War, most of whom were nurses. It serves as a reminder of the importance of women in the conflict. It depicts three uniformed women with a wounded soldier. The woman looking up is named Hope, the woman praying is named Faith, and the woman tending to a wounded soldier is named Charity. The memorial was dedicated on November 11, 1993.

The Three Soldiers is another bronze statue, commemorating the Vietnam War. It was created and designed to complement the Vietnam Wall Memorial, by adding a more traditional component to the Memorial. The statue was unveiled on Veterans Day, 1984.

This well-known sculpture portrays three young U.S. fighting men, dressed and outfitted in uniforms and equipment used by U.S. infantrymen in the Vietnam War. While the military attire is meant to be symbolic and general in nature, the personal combat equipment displayed is actually quite specific in representing the figures as serving in either the U.S. Army, or U.S. Marine Corps.

Of the three fighting men, the lead figure (in the middle) represents a Marine, as he wears a Type M-1955 body armor vest, which was worn exclusively by Marines in Vietnam. He is armed only with a Colt M1911A1 .45 caliber automatic pistol, which is carried in a Government Issue (GI) M-1916 leather pistol holster, on the right hip. The M-1916 holster is attached to an M-1956 GI pistol belt, and a small GI .45 pistol magazine pouch is carried on the belt's left front. The M-1911A1 .45 caliber pistol was used by Marine enlisted, NCO, and officer ranks, so its depiction is consistent with a Marine of any rank. The Marine wears no shirt, and his body armor vest serves as his only upper-body clothing.

The man on the right wears combat equipment consistent with a U.S. Army Soldier, and specifically, a Type M69 body armor vest, which was the primary armor vest used mainly by U.S. Army personnel in Vietnam, from about 1967 on. His M69 armor vest is unsecured, and worn fully open at the front, which was a typical fashion of troops in Vietnam, as a measure in which to promote ventilation (in spite of reducing the vest's overall protective levels). In his left hand he carries an M16A1 rifle, the main battle rifle for both Soldiers and Marines, from about 1967 on.

The man on the left is slightly less specific in the service representation of his gear and uniform, but he appears to be a U.S. Army Soldier, as he wears a Tropical ("Boonie") Hat, which was widely worn by Army combat personnel in Vietnam, and to a much lesser extent by Marines. This man wears no body armor, and is armed only with an M60 machine gun, and he carries two separate belts of 7.62mm machine gun ammunition draped and criss-crossed over his torso.

In which to portray the major ethnic groups that were represented in the ranks of U.S. combat personnel that served in Vietnam, the statue's three men are purposely identifiable as Caucasian (the lead man), African American (man on right), and Hispanic (man on left).

On to the Korean War Memorial. This memorial is in the form of a triangle intersecting a circle. The memorial walls contain more than 100 tons of highly polished black granite from California. There are more than 2,500 photographic images sandblasted onto the wall, representing the land, sea and air troops who supported those who fought in the war.

Within the walled area are 19 statues, each larger than life-size (roughly 7.5 feet tall) and each weighing nearly 1,000 pounds. The figures represent a squad on patrol, drawn from each branch of the armed forces. Fourteen of the figures are from the U.S. Army, three are from the Marine Corps, one is a Navy Corpsman, and one is an Air Force Forward Air Observer. They are dressed in full combat gear, dispersed among granite and juniper bushes which represent the rugged terrain of Korea.

A simple but poignant message on one of the walls at the Korean War Memorial.

After visiting the monuments and memorials in the mall area, we headed back out in the car. With darkness setting in, I was able to only get a somewhat poor shot of the Marine Corps War Memorial (Iwo Jima Memorial). This memorial is just outside the walls of the Arlington National Cemetery.

After a day of monuments and memorial, we headed off for a ride through Chinatown, then headed out for dinner.

By bike, we covered 130 miles today traveling from Newark Delaware to Alexandria Virginia, just outside of Washington D.C., taking our trip total to 1856 miles. Below is a map of the route from today.