Nothing is by chance

For the past week, I have described our purpose for visiting Washington DC; all of which mean that for us when we are away from home we hardly watch any TV.  Coming back to one's hotel room at the end of a long day is the time we settle in, clear our head, check messages and read other people's postings.  So we missed the last days of the Republican stuff and all of the Democratic Convention and their speakers.  We have to read the messages later.  The chance that my concert at the National Cathedral coincided with most of the majority of Important people being absent from DC probable made the traffic seem easier to navigate around the city.  DC is a large city with lots of things one should see in one's life time; but as one of our bus driver Mr. Map said; it would take more then 40 years to see all of the museums both free and private.

Note; it would be important to recharge the battery of one's camera every night to make sure you don't miss any photo opportunities.  My camera's batteries died when we got the the Lincoln Memorial on the night tour, as you can see in this photo of the Washington Monument.

On this night tour, our driver worked as an Urban Planner before he took this job of a Bus Tour driver. Our first stop was the Navy's Memorial, with 3 fountains that contained the saltwater from each of the Oceans our Navy sailed surrounding the large map of the world and it's oceans; and if you splashed your loved one with the water, you will have good luck.  As he watched us give each other a bath he said that we must be very good friends.
But the tour had to make rather quick stops as there was a time limit so we had to pick and choose.  One of our stops at the Tidal Basin was at the FDR, Dr. King's, Memorial and the second stop had the Korean, Vietnam and Lincoln Memorials; a lot to see and take in, in such a relative short time.

FDR's and the Vietnam Memorials were the two that affected me the most; visiting the four 'room's' of FDR's memorial and reading his quote's made me angry.  Angry, that our representatives that we have sent to Washington have failed to take note and learn the lessons our Nations learned as we struggled to overcome the many years of the Depression. Neglected to take to heart the reasons our Government failed the people.  Our Republican lead Congress failed to learn their history lessons.  And it makes me angry.

My experience standing at the Vietnam memorial, a man made scar on the grounds of the Washington Mall grounds, with it's  marble slabs with the names of our young men who gave their lives engraved on the polished marble face, elicits tears and sobbing.  It manifests a deep pulling connections to be one with the Wall.  Actually touching the Wall open so many memories, feelings, smells that completely emersion one's self into that lifetime so many years ago.  The Wall re-awakes memories forgotten; on purpose, or of times too far into one's past life.  My war experiences were very different from those who walked the rice paddy landscape, broken by bombs, or by chemicals and physically fighting for  their lives in their small private wars.  I think about the combat soldiers I saw; not knowing who lived or who died, and I remember!

On our last day after walking all over washington, we returned to Lincoln's Memorial.  Only I forgot to bring my camera so I have no pictures of that night.  But it was humbling to stand in front of Lincoln's statue placed in that huge chamber upon which are the Gettysburg Address and his Second Inaugural Speech in engrave in the wall for as long as it stands.  As our tour driver, Mr Map said; there is a reason as to why each and every monument is placed and to what and where it faces.  Nothing is haphazardly built in Washington DC.