Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

• It's a travel day. It's a holiday. It's the HWMISB.
• I've got a D.C. travel tip. If you want to visit any memorial, any significant site, then do it early. Set your alarm and get there at the crack of dawn. Without the crowds, the experience is exponentionally better. Heck, at times it can be glorious. 
• The Holocaust Museum is incredible and so well done. It's a history lesson of Hitler's rise and the World War II time line told around the European Jews.  It's four stories tall and they tell you to start at the top. 
• As you step off the elevator, you are hit in the face with "Americans Encounter The Camps."
  
• Hitler's rise to power, which was described as "the people" being sick of political parties and longing for an authoritarian ruler who thought Germany belonged to the "true" Germans, made me very uncomfortable going into 2020.
  
  
  
  
• Like so many things about this trip, I'm not doing this museum justice.  How about an exhibit of a pile of shoes forcibly abandoned by those who had entered a Death Camp?
  
• The Vietnam War Memorial may be my favorite. Here's an example of being there alone. 
  
• All those names. All. Those. Names. 
  
• It occurred to me that I didn't know any Wise County names to look up. And that bothered me. There has to be some on the wall, yet how do I not know them?  I decided to find the name of a man who I learned about in Ken Burns' documentary. A guy who ran away from home at 17 and wouldn't come back until his parents agreed to allow him to enlist. He was killed on June 4, 1966 at age 19.
  
• There are also a lot of side statues which might miss. This sign got my attention since it told tourists to stay out of the bushes. We have to be told to not voluntarily go into the bushes. We sent these guys into the jungle. 
  
• The Korean Memorial is so well done. I was struck by the guy in the last row. He's the only one with a face of alarm -- as if he hears something off ot his left. 
  
  
  
  
• Arlington Cemetary is a must see (and there's a subway stop that takes you right to it.) I'm not sure I knew all those graves were decorated with a wreath for the holidays. 
  I'
• JFK's flame is still going. I always forget that Jackie was buried beside him. (Aristotle Onassis is buried on an island in Greece.)
  
• Right by JFK's grave is a gathering of famous Supreme Court justices. You would miss this if you weren't looking for it. (Earl Warren's is also buried in the cemetary but it was a long way away.)
  
  
  
  
• I had some time so I roamed around, and  I saw the tomb below and walked over to it. I'll be, it was Abraham Lincoln's son, Robert Todd Lincoln. Here's a little trivia: He lived long enough to be at the actual dedication of the Lincoln Memorial in 1922. And he had one son, named Abraham Lincoln II, who died at age 16 after infection from a minor surgery. His name is on the tomb as well. There are no direct heirs of Abraham Lincoln alive today. 
  
• I caught a view looking back at the Lincoln Memorial over the Potomac. But I couldn't help but notice another protrusion into the skyline. That's Trump hotel. I had no idea that thing was so prominent. 
  
• I went back to the Smithsonian Museum of American History. Here's some things which I just ran across.
• Here's Melania Trump's dress from inauguration night.
  
• Everyone knows about Nixon's coverup of the Watergate burglary, but I don't think as many people know he ordered a break in of a doctor's office to get dirt on a reporter. Here's the filing cabinent that they pried open. 
  
• Lincoln's hat that he wore to Ford's Theater.
  
• Just the actual chairs and table used at the Surrender at Appomattox. 
  
• The original looks better, but I managed to take a panoramic shot at the mall (Capitol far left, Washington Memorial far right) as the sun was going down on 2019.
  
  
• I don't know if I'll ever make it back here. But it was good to spend enought time not to be rushed. "I wish I had more time there," is a common complaint.