Taking a break along the Tidal Basin...

After we left the Einstein Memorial, we walked back through the Vietnam War Memorial. We passed a group of high school students, I think, crossing the other way after seeing the Memorial, and there was another tour going through, but we were able to just trail along behind them and not get pushed along too terribly much. I'm not sure that I'd really want to be there during the real tourist rushes during the Cherry Blossom Festival or during the summer vacation months. I'm sure it would just be a total madhouse.

I didn't take a lot of pictures of the Vietnam Memorial. It doesn't lend itself incredibly well to photography, in my opinion, but I did snap a couple of pictures. This is just looking down one of the walls toward the center corner:


A close up of one section of the wall:


And some roses left at the base of the wall:


After taking our time walking through the Memorial and asking one of the Park Rangers how the names were organized, we passed the front of the Lincoln Memorial and took a few more pictures there. (Oh, and if you're interested in how the names are arranged, try this link. The explanation is about halfway down the page, under "How are the names arranged on the Wall?" They explain it better than I can.)

Here's another shot down the Reflecting Pool toward the Washington Monument and the Capitol Building:


And the girlfriend posing in front of the Lincoln Memorial:


And then we wandered over toward the Korean War Memorial. I had never really seen any information about this Memorial before. It's pretty interesting, with a collection of statues of soldiers marching up a hill covered with small evergreen shrubs. Along the south wall is a polished granite wall, similar to that at the Vietnam Memorial, but not inscribed with names. These are the statues:





The wall along the south side of the monument is polished granite, very reflective. You can barely see the ghostly figures engraved in the stone in the bright sunlight:


If you shade a section of the wall, though, the figures come into easy view:


I'm sure that with the statues lit up from below at night, it's an incredibly haunting sort of memorial.

After the Korean War Memorial, we walked south toward the Tidal Basin. We didn't have the time or energy to go see one monument along the way, but we saw if peeking through the trees as we walked past:


I believe it's the DC World War II Veterans' Memorial, but I'm not completely positive of that. Something else that we definitely need to go see on our next trip to DC.

While resting on one of the benches here along the Tidal Basin, I've snapped a few pictures of some of the memorials and such visible from here. There's a great view of the Jefferson Memorial:


And a wider view:


From just a little further down the walk, there are some great views of the Washington Monument reflecting in the Basin, too:


And some of the other buildings between the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial:


Unfortunately, we're here just a little early to see the cherry blossoms. They're budding out now, and it looks like it'll only be about a week or so before they're in full bloom. It's kind of hard for me to get a good, focused picture of them, with the wind starting to pick up a little, but you can see from these just how close they are to opening up:



Next time, we're hoping that we'll be able to come back in April, when they're in their full glory. Of course, that means a lot more crowds, but we'll just deal with that. And now, off to see the FDR and Jefferson Memorials, and we'll see how much more we can do before our legs give out on us...