Moonlit Monuments Hike

Last weekend I went on a moonlit hike around the monuments in DC. I think the last time I visited the monuments was on a school field trip, and even then I'm not sure if I actually remember the trip or I just assume I went to DC at some point on a field trip because I went to school in Maryland. Anyway, here are a couple of photos from our walk. I apologize that some of them are fuzzy: the lighting just wasn't very good!

We started at the Washington Monument. From there you could see the top of the Capital.

Then we moved on to the World War II Memorial, which has pillars all around the perimeter of this beautiful fountain representing the states (and DC).

Here is the Washington Monument from the WWII Memorial. There is still a lot of construction going on with the Washington Monument from the 2011 earthquake.

 

Next was the Lincoln Memorial (you know, that thing on the back of every penny). It looked spectacular in the dark!

Inside is the statue of Abe himself. He looks good as new after some crazy woman tossed green paint all over him earlier this year.

Then we saw the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, which is quite new. You walk through this large stone (actually cubes of stone all put together; the rock came from China), which represents his quote, "Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope."

 

His statue is HUGE! Around the memorial are more quotes from King; very moving!

Then we walked to the FDR Memorial, which I didn't even know existed! This one is very large with several different areas. It's like a maze walking through there!

This part of the memorial is really interesting. There are impressions of faces, hands, people, etc. along with braille. The community of people with disabilities really relate to FDR, hence this section.

There were several waterfalls throughout this memorial. And I'm not sure if it was jasmine or gardenia, but there was a LOVELY floral smell throughout the memorial! Mmm!

Here is FDR with his little dog!

Last but not least was the Jefferson Memorial. I actually took this photo from the MLK statue.

And I feel silly admitting this, but I didn't know there was an actual statue inside of this memorial! He's so tall that no one can reach up to wipe the cobwebs off of his face! This memorial has special meaning to me because it's where my dad proposed to my mom!

I know at some point we did see the Korean War Veterans Memorial, but because it was so dark out, none of my photos came out. But that one is really amazing! There are 19 statues representing soldiers, and then on the wall behind them are engravings created from real photographs of real veterans.

I recommend checking them all out! They each are unique and have something different to offer!