First Time Tourists

On our first weekend in DC, we decided to spend half a day checking out the sites in our nation's capital. So we hopped on the unreliable D6 bus and headed downtown.

Our first stop was 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., the White House. Which is surprisingly much smaller in person. Even though it was early Sunday morning, there were a couple of one-man protests on the street, including one guy with a cardboard box over his head raising money to usurp President Bush.

Focus, focus, hold the camera steady...

Our second stop, the always amazing Office of Thrift Supervision! For those of you that don't know, the Office of Thrift Supervision, an agency of the United States Department of the Treasury, is the primary regulator of federal savings associations, sometimes referred to as federal thrifts. Interesting, eh?

McKinsey in front of the Red Cross headquarters, the organization she helped established. Well, I guess "technically" she didn't establish it, but she was very active with Campus Red Cross at Nebraska and organized several blood drives. So still pretty good.

We were all excited to eat at the Clara Barton Cafe at the Red Cross building, but we were bummed to find out it was closed on weekends.

Everybody's favorite obelisk, the Washington Monument. Interesting fact: Construction was begun on the Washington Monument before the Civil War and was halted when the war began. When construction started back up, the color in the limestone quarry had changed, accounting for the coloration difference between the top and the bottom parts of the monument.

The World War II memorial with either a bird or a UFO in the picture. This is the newest memorial in the DC area, dedicated in 2004, and is really quite beautiful. There were a couple of WWII veterans there in wheelchairs who looked like they were seeing it for the first time. Made for a pretty solemn environment.

The lovely fountains in the middle of the memorial.

There was this curved wall at the memorial completely covered with these gold stars. I don't know what they stood for (maybe the number killed?) but it made for some very striking pictures.

McKinsey and I in front of the memorial.

The reflecting pool doing its job, reflecting.

Like many of the buildings in DC, the Lincoln Memorial was model after Grecian and Roman temples.

The famous Lincoln statue that I'm sure everyone is familiar with. It was jampacked with people in there. There were little signs everywhere saying "Please Show Respect. Be Quiet." but, judging from the constant din, I don't think people were paying much attention to them. This would be a really nice place to see when there weren't any people around, if that were ever possible.

McKinsey deeply focused on our 16th president in all his marble grandeur.

My favorite stop of the day, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The story of its creation is every designer's dream. It's designer, Maya Lin, won a public design competition for the project while still and undergraduate at Yale.

The memorial provides these pieces of paper to make rubbings of names of friends or relatives.

The stone is highly polished and reflective and its amazing the effect it creates as all these people are walking by it.

This picture is for Warren. In amongst all the BMWs, Mercedes, and Jaguars in downtown DC, three Harley Davidson motorcycles.

On our way back home, we came across the White House from the back, which is a lot more attractive view. Hopefully sometime soon we'll hit the other side of the downtown area, which has the Smithsonian, U.S. Capitol, and National Mall.