Washington DC 2023

Washington DC-2023
From  March 19th through April 5th, 2023

Our People :  Thoughts : Trail Lessons : Trail Log :  Abbreviations


Our People:
Sherri

Gary

Rachel

Edrees


Thoughts:
 

Some questions which we were asked when we got back. After reflection, also the answers:

• What did you like best about the trip?
• What place  were you less enamored with?
• Where would you go again?
• What would you do differently?
• Metro If we had realized a bit more how the Metro worked, we would have used it even for shorter trips. This would have saved steps and our energy. As the two weeks wore on, we figured out how to use the Metro better. On the first couple of days, we could have saved ourselves 4-6 miles of walking.

VRBO Evaluation (1160 1st NE):  We were the first guests at this site. And with any inaugural event, there were a few things which needed to be taken care of, which our host promptly did.   Our host, once we were settled in, left us to ourselves. She did check in on us occasionally to make sure we were OK-we were.

This place worked out well for us on several fronts. First the place was clean and comfortable. It had one bedroom; a kitchen, laundry, and a living area with TV.  Note: the TV did not have reception to the area TV stations, but had preloaded streaming services such as NetFlex-your account. 

The rooms and building were secure. You entered the building with a key fob, as well as used the elevator was controlled with the fob. The room is on the third floor. We spent most of our 15 days out doing touristy things, without a car. The Red Line on the Metro was only about a five minute walk.

There were two stores and a CVS within two minute walk from the building. So all of our needs were taken care of.

This VRBO place was a good place to stay. Would we use this place again? Yes.

Trail Lessons:

Two questions which we discussed:

1. What do we want to know more about?
2. What did we hear or see which we want to be more active about?
   

 
Trail Log:

 

Date	Activity			Miles Walked
March 19	Train Trip from Fresno to LA				Tracks got flooded and we were bused. Arrived 5 hrs late
March 20	Flight to DC			0.6
March 21	Walk down the National Mall			9.0
March 22	Capitol, Portrait Gallery, Old Post Office			4.1
March 23	Nation Archives, US Capitol Tour through Costa's office, Library of Congress			4.1
March 24	World War I Memorial, White House Visitor Center, Museum of American History			3.1
March 25	Arlington and Georgetown			5.5
March 26	Renwick Museum, African-American Museum, and Kramers Bookstore			2.9
March 27	Air and Space Museum , National Zoo and Politics and Prose			2.9
March 28	Tidal Basin and Hains Point			7.7	Cherry blossoms galore
March 29	Natural History Museum, Pollinator and Sculpture Gardens and Gallery of Art			1.7
March 30	Supreme Court, Ford's Theater, and Kennedy Center			2.1
March 31	National Arboretum			3.7
April 1	Mt Vernon			N/A
April 2	Bible Museum, Native-American Museum			2.1
April 3	US Postal Museum, US Botanic Garden, Eisenhower Memorial			2.6
April 4	Return trip to California
April 5	Return to Fresno

Things to further look at or think about:

• Who was Sojourner Truth
• Meaning of the symbols on the US Capitol Rotunda-Dr Fiala talked about this in one of his classes.
•  Dr Norman E Borlaug-Green revolution
• Galileo Starry Messanger
• Galileo First Work in Astronomy
• Euclid
• Books of Hours
• Read the founding documents: Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights, Magna Carta
• Elizabeth Burgin
•  Lincoln
• Speeches such as Fiery Trial 
•  Gettysburg Address
•  Second Inaugural Address
•  Willa Cather book One of Ours - tied to the World War I Memorial
•  Archibald MacLeish poem The Young Dead Soldiers Do Not Speak
• What made Maude Callen special? Referenced at the African-American Museum as a mid-wife
• Look up William and Mary Elizabeth Sugg from Sonora. Referenced at the African-American Museum
• Black Greek Letter - look at this 
• George Mason-read more about him, particularly his writings
• "Regarding slavery.... that slow poison, which is daily contaminating the minds and morals of our people. Every gentlemen here is born a petty tyrant. Practiced in acts of despotism and cruelty, we become callous to the dictates of humanity, and all the finer feelings of the soul. Taught to regard a part of our own species in the most abject and contemptible degree below us, we lose that idea of the dignity of man, which the hand of nature had implanted in us, for great and useful purposes...George Mason, July 1773"
• "I recommend it to my sons...never to let the motives of private interest or ambition to induce them to betray, nor the terrors of poverty and disgrace or the fear of danger or of death deter them from asserting the liberty of their country, and endeavoring to transmit to their posterity those sacred rights to which themselves were born. George Mason, March 1773"
• "All men are born equally free and independent, and have certain inherent natural rights... among which are the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety. George Mason, May 1776"
• MLK quotes
• National War College as a primer on National Security Strategy 
• Read a biography of John Marshall
• Also Brandeis
• Oliver Wendall Homes
• Read some of the more important cases regarding the Supreme Court
• Also look at the line of thinking of whether the Court should be strictly what the original signers said and thought or should it be malleable. There was indications within the halls that the original justices were thinking more in terms of malleable.
  
• Read some of the current court decisions
• Lincoln-read biography
• Book: His Greatest Speeches edited by Diana Schaub
• History Channel seemed to have a lot on Lincoln also on Fredrick Douglas
  
• Kennedy Center-check the streamed concerts
• Find a biography of George Washington. What made him the man which people wanted to follow?
• Indian Treaties-what documentation can I find about these treaties and how well they were kept? Take a look at the Smithsonian book page. There is a title called Nation to Nation: Treaties Between the United States and American Indian Nations by Suzan Shown Harjo which looks promising.
  
• Look at the Vatican Library
• Who is Robert Taft?
  
• Eisenhower
• Book Ike and McCarthy by David Nichols
• Stephen Ambrose's biography, Eisenhower: Soldier and President
  
• Smithsonian Castle and Gardens. Who were:
• Joseph Henry
• Spencer Baird
• Research out Robert A Taft
  
• Robert Kennedy - either a biography or if he wrote a book. His quotes ate Arlington are inspiring:
•  "It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest wall of oppression and resistance." – Robert F. Kennedy, South Africa, June 6, 1966

• "Some men see things as they are and ask 'Why?' I dream things that never were and ask, 'Why not?''' – Robert F. Kennedy, quoting playwright George Bernard Shaw in his 1968 presidential campaign

   Aeschylus...wrote, "Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.' What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness; but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black 

Abbreviations:

• NPS - National Park Service
• DC-District of Columbia