Flashback Friday - The Day Trip Edition

In a recent attempt to organize our house, I found a big bag of film that we had never had developed. I have lately been sending them off 2 or 3 at a time to Snapfish to get developed. It has been nice remembering the nearly forgotten events recorded on these rolls. It also shows the great advantage of digital photography, that you can see the photos right away and retake as needed. We have a lot of really bad photos. Anyway, one day many moons ago, our family took a day trip into DC. To let you know how long ago it is now, here is a photo:

The blonde on the left is now a bearded 21 year old and the red head on the right is now 6'5" tall and a 16 year old football player.

We went to the FDR memorial, which I think had been only recently opened at the time. It is an interesting memorial, with a series of realistic statues. Here is a bread line:

The thing about the realism, though, is that people were posing with the statues for photos, and to me that somehow diminishes the reverence that a memorial should possess. It seemed ok when people joined the bread line, but not so much when people sat on FDR's lap like he was Santa or something.

After that we went to the Korean War Memorial, another design with a bit of realism:



Somehow the way the pathways were set up for traffic flow, and I think because there were stone pillars in the grass, people got the message not to join the soldiers in the field. (Actually, as a side note, I just looked up the memorial online, and the field is filled with juniper shrubs, not grass, so that is probably more why there were no photo ops with the soldiers.) It was a moving experience. The memorial also includes a shiny stone wall, which reflects the soldiers from the field. Also, etched into the wall are a variety of images of people involved in the war.

We also went to the Vietnam Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial that day. Looking at these photos made me miss the days when our kids were little and we could just declare "hey, let's go for a ride" and everyone's schedules were clear.