I'm out and about: DC!!

Almost exactly a month ago, I went to DC for 2 days.
It was wonderful.
I have missed travel so much. I just stared out the window in complete happiness the entire trip down. Even when the AC broke down, I was just happy to watch the scenery go by. Trees! Hills! Deer!
Fun fact: they name the rest stops here after famous people. I didn't trust the Walt Witman one as much as the Thomas Edison one, but was completely reassured by the Clara Barton one.
And DC was lovely! I wasn't expecting to like it much, but Nick was there and told me I would love it. And he was right, of course. Just look how clean and pretty the streets are:

So different from NYC!
Fun fact: the streets in DC are just letters and numbers. So it's like a giant game of battle ship. No "street" even. Just "B" "N" "1".
Anyway, so the bus dropped me off in Chinatown, and with no map (I didn't even look at one before I left.) I headed off with only Nick's directions of "go south".

So I found the Mall with no problems, and settled down by a fountain in a sculpture garden to eat the muffin I brought for lunch.

Then I headed in the direction of what I thought was the Capitol. It was actually the Lincoln Memorial, which I only realized when I could actually make out the Lincoln statue. But first: the Washington Monument.

I really lucked on the weather this whole trip, but it did get pretty hot when you were walking in the sun. The breeze off the fountain felt really good.
I was pleasantly surprised by how much I actually liked seeing all the monuments. I didn't think I would. While walking around, I noticed a lot of Honor Flight people around.

There were ducks everywhere!

The view from the Lincoln memorial. It doesn't look very far, but it is a lot of walking between all these things! So, the best thing about the Lincoln memorial on a hot day like this: it is nice cool marble.

The ceiling was so cool!

I could just sit there for hours. I almost did. Watching tourists, staying cool, if I wasn't meeting Teresa for dinner I just might have.

I stumbled upon the Vietnam memorial on my stroll back. I was kinda shocked at how sad it is in real life. Not that I was expecting it to be fun and happy, but pictures don't do justice to just how sad it is.