Washed up DC and Now headed to Charleston.

After having written up that last entry I headed out the door and hit just a few other places before I headed out of Washington DC. I went to the Library of Congress, Supreme Court, and the WWII memorial that opened fairly recently.

I have to say that the most visibly spectacular was the Library of Congress that has within the last few years been refurbished and cleaned. It was really amazing since it definitely looked like the renaissance style they were trying to replicate; just with 20th century overtones. Minerva, or Athena to those who might not know her other name, was all over the building, but there was one painting of her leading up to a balcony to the main reading room that looked like an early Art Deco piece, it was done too early for Art Deco around 1905, possibly a precursor? We didn’t get to go in the main reading room that is so iconic, since that would be disrupting the researchers who were reading at the tables. Apparently you have to be doing some project to get into that room and even then you can’t take pictures. This explanation made me want to lie so I could get into the reading room and just look up at the really awesome dome. I guess that some of the scenes that looked like the Library of Congress that were in National Treasure: Book of Secrets actually was the Library, so it was cool to have seen parts of it before. I really enjoyed looking at the whole structure and it was by far the most colorful and most ornate building in the Mall that I saw on this trip.

I then headed over to the Supreme Court, which is right next door and both directly behind the capital building. It wasn’t that remarkable of a building really by comparison with the Library. There is a lot of marble everywhere with busts of past chief justices all along the hall leading to the courtroom where the nine justices preside. They didn’t let people into the chamber except to listen to a lecture about the court, so I went downstairs to the Supreme Court Café to wait for the next lecture to start. The service was slow and food about as good, so it took a while to get my BLT. As a result I had to inhale to get back in time to hear the lecture. The older guy who gave the lecture had given it a few times, so he knew where to put the jokes thus making it a really good talk. There wasn’t any pictures allowed in the actual chamber itself, which was really lame and didn’t seem at all warranted as there was nothing that would fade or get hurt by flashbulbs. It was a beautiful room, but far more austere then the Library. There was a pantheon of lawgivers, high above our heads on the wall. They included the likes of Moses, Hammurabi, and King John who signed the Magna Carta and many others I can’t name. There was also a lot of curtains everywhere broken up by these Egyptian screens; pomp and circumstance seemed to rule there even as it is a place of change. The lecturer did go over the fact the chief justices are responsible for looking at over the 10,000 petitions the court gets every year. They only take about 100 of those to trial every year and a lot to winnow down so despite only being in session 3 days a week, they’re prepping the rest of the time.

I then biked down to the WWII memorial by way of the Washington monument and checked out the capital’s most recent addition to its line up. The whole thing is fairly large with a large fountain in the middle and there are columns marking all the states and territories that participated. I made sure to take pictures of the rectangular obelisks of the states my family is both from and currently residing. It’s really hard to me to fathom, that at my age, my Grandfathers where out fighting a war against an enemy they weren’t sure they could defeat. Now with 20/20 hindsight, it seem like Hitler and the Japanese were destined to fall but I doubt it felt like that in November of 1941. War is a huge price to pay for any generation, I’m glad my grandparents did what was necessary when they were called. I hope that my generation could do the same, though since times are so different it’s hard to say.

I then headed out of DC to Arlington and though Virginia. Everything was going well until I crossed the North Carolina border. From there I got caught in a traffic jam that lasted for about an hour, where the traffic literally did not move. Apparently two women were killed after they were thrown from the vehicle http://www.wral.com/news/news_briefs/story/3057454/ though I saw little evidence of that by the time I got to the site, other than two ambulances racing to the scene. It was actually a cool time and I got to talk to some friends on the phone and commiserate, most I hadn’t talked to in a while as I waited for traffic to clear.

From there I drove a little longer and stopped at the basic side of the road place (hotels and the usual bad restaurants) where I stopped at a Subway for some dinner. I had heard from a guy at the house I stayed at in Philly that you are allowed to stay in parking lots of most Wal-Mart’s for free. So since this particular stop on the highway had one, I headed over to eat my dinner. Well there minding my own business eating my dinner with the windows down, because was the weather was nice for once, but who should come up immediately but the security guard, who patrols the parking lot. I had some misgivings about staying in the parking lot, but this guy brushed them aside by spontaneously saying:

“You can stop here for a few hours tonight if you’d like, though I’d suggest you head over along that median toward the back of the lot where it’s quieter. I just saw you’re license plate was out of state so I figured you might be here for that. It’s real safe around here, no gangs, still a real small town.”

I didn’t really say anything throughout this whole interchange and let him head right back to cruising the lot. I ended up spending as comfortable a night in my car as can be expected. The weather agreed with me and rained, thus cooling things down. I shopped at the Wal-Mart to get a portable fan, which made things vastly better (this only confirms why Wal-Mart has this policy of letting people stay in their lots people buy stuff). If I sleep in my car again I think I’ll try another arrangement, as my legs were really cramped by early the next morning.

I grabbed a quick breakfast and then headed out decently early, before 8am. It took me a lot longer to get to Charleston then I had thought, but finding my hostess Kate was easier then anticipated as she gave very good directions. I have gotten to know Kate this evening and afternoon. I’ve learned a good deal about her and she’s a really quiet interesting and an especially good at being hostess, she served me a dinner and given me clean sheets, two things I had not expected her to provide.