Thursday - July 27, 2006

Morning was warm and clammy as we began our drive into the nation's capital. Like I said earlier, Vienna and I are confirmed nerds for Washington D.C. She still remembers the lines to our version of the Star Spangled Banner written to recite the names of every U.S. President in chronological order, and she continues to amaze me with her lengthy recitations from the musical, 1776. And I've been a politics junkie since I was about her age too. So, we stashed our car at a Metro parking lot (New Carrollton, if you're curious) and headed for the Smithsonian stop. Exiting onto the Mall, we were hit with a wall of heat. We'd heard about the spiking temperatures in this part of the country. But as we'd managed to stay a couple days ahead of miserable weather throughout the country, I secretly hoped we'd avoid the triple digit temperatures affecting some parts of the northeast. But our luck ran out here. Quickly we decided to avoid the outdoor monuments and stick to air-conditioned spaces, at least until late afternoon.

Our only exception to that plan was our first visit, to the National WWII Memorial. We'd gotten our tickets for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, but they weren't good until later that morning, so we began our hike to the oval commemoration site placed between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. I'd read about this place, newly built to commemorate the men and women who won the war and changed the world, and I knew I had to see it. Truthfully, I don't know what else they could have done, but the emphasis on state names on separate pillars seems to overwhelm the purpose of this site. Even so, I really dug the individual narrative reliefs that depict scenes from the growing conflict, from a family listening to news about Pearl Harbor on their radio to a joyful homecoming. The monument's centerpiece is a pool with splashing fountains, and I could tell that virtually everyone around was wishing we could take a dip.

Returning to the Holocaust Museum, we entered a site that transforms even the most blasé tourist into a serious student. I won't attempt to recount the entire visit. Suffice it to say that the descent from Hitler's emergence through to the miseries heaped upon "non-Aryans" to the Final Solution is a ghastly journey. Looking at schoolbooks created to indoctrinate German children to hate Jews, walking through a cattle car that held people being sent to concentration camps, listening to the recorded voices of survivors, I found myself repeating in my mind, "This happened. This happened." I've never understood people who doubt the existence of the Holocaust, or those who seek to diminish its extent. But I also can hardly believe the reality of this event; it's beyond my comprehension. And while I've studied some of the rhetoric of Adolf Hitler, I find it impossible to understand him either. But one can hardly doubt that this man, these people, this event - they're not abstract. They're not merely historical. They existed, and they could occur again in some other form. Indeed, the museum distributes actual warnings that similar extermination is happening again, this time in Darfur. Passing by photographs of survivors freed from the camps, some joyous, others dazed, still others horrified, I experienced an onslaught of tears whose intensity surprised me. At last, Vienna and I entered Hall of Remembrance with its drifting streams of sunlight, before departing the museum, relieved and exhausted.

Outside we realized we'd been touring this site for almost three hours. It was time for a break, so we returned to the Metro and headed for Union Station where we partook in the joys of the food court. Vienna and I have been stuck together for two weeks now. Honestly, I've had a whale of a time hanging out with my daughter. But it's nice to spend even a moment apart following our individual bliss. So she got some sort of BBQ chicken while I got a cheese steak sandwich (one day away from Philly, but I couldn't wait). We walked around the cavernous station, looking at shops and enjoying the cool air. Soon we returned to the Metro.

Our stop would be the Hirshhorn Museum and its collection of modern art. Vienna chose this site, and I was delighted. This is one of my favorite D.C. stops. The circular building itself offers a clever contrast from the more rigid forms that dominate this city, and its collection is fun, whimsical, and occasionally shocking. From floor to floor, I searched for my favorite piece. I was about to give up until I saw the glowing light in the next room. Yes, they still have Nam June Paik's Video Flag (description: "Synchronized video playback on seventy CRT monitors"). The installation even has a viewing couch. Vienna had never seen this piece, and she seemed to really dig it. We sat for ten minutes or so, practicing various ways to veg out to this video comment on the intersection of American politics and media. Focusing on one screen produces an effect of over-stimulation; focusing upon none in particular - letting images flow without differentiation - produces a trance that was both dreamy and disturbing. Vienna also enjoyed Joseph Kosuth’s "Four Colors Four Words" piece, though I must admit: I don't get it.

By now, it was five in the afternoon and we were both pretty tired. But leaving at this point was just too early. So we boarded the Metro for the Arlington stop where we would cross Arlington Memorial Bridge to the Lincoln Memorial. Along the way, we stopped at the Seabee monument. While I wasn't a Seabee during my active duty years, I joined their ranks as a reservist. There really wasn't much of a place for a Navy journalist where I lived, and since a detachment of Seabees was nearby, they made me a Navy Seabee journalist. Since then, I've had some affection for this monument. From a distance, the statue of a construction worker helping a small boy is vaguely frightening; it looks like he's about the yank the kid's arms out from the roots. But up close it's rather sweet. I also love one of the slogans: "…The difficult we do at once. The impossible takes a bit longer."

From there we crossed the bridge toward the Lincoln Memorial. I joked with Vienna about how the site's size had screwed up our distance perception, that the monument was actually several miles of walking away. But she's not easily fooled. Within about twenty minute we climbed the steps and joined the throngs of tourists glad to be out of the sun. Etched on the inside walls, Lincoln's Second Inaugural and his Gettysburg Address remind you what presidential discourse once could accomplish, and we both found this place to be genuinely inspirational. Vienna and I took a picture of the Gettysburg Address, etched into the south wall of the Memorial. We plan to memorize it sometime during our travels.

Walking back to the Smithsonian station, we passed by softball teams playing on the Mall and enjoyed the effect of the slowly setting sun on the Washington Monument. Along with the broiling heat, today's weather has been a bit hazy. But the sky now opened up into ripples of clouds that floated amidst the oncoming evening. By nightfall, we were heading north toward our motel where we will sleep in tomorrow before visiting Philadelphia's Independence Hall. Yes, Vienna and I really love this stuff.