Weather: mostly sunny, pleasantly warm
I was up at 8.30, and after breakfast Reba dropped me off at the relatively nearby Van Dorn Street station on her way to work, the nearest stop on the Washington area metro system.
I travelled as far as the station at Arlington Cemetery, still on the Virginia side of the Potomac River. With the prospect of less favourable weather over the following few days, I had decided that I would start by seeing some of the outdoor sights first.
I first looked in the small Visitor Centre by the main gate, which had a few displays relating to the cemetery, including one on buglers and the simple but haunting melody of ``Taps'', played at each funeral.
The cemetery was established in part as an act of vindictiveness during the American Civil War in the grounds of Arlington House, before the war home to the family of General Robert E. Lee, who had become the leading general of the Confederate Army. Since 1864, around a quarter of a million military personnel and dependents have been interred within the cemetery. The rules for eligibility for interment are complex, but include all those who died on active duty, spent more than twenty years in the service, were honorably discharged for disability or who were awarded one of several military decorations. At the current rate of burial, the cemetery may be expected to fill within about thirty years.
First of the graves I wished to see was the most visited: that of President John F. Kennedy, sited prominently on the hillside below Arlington House and marked by an eternal flame. Alongside are buried Jacqueline Kennedy and two children who died in infancy, while nearby is the grave of his brother Robert, victim of another assassin's bullet.
I next went to the Tomb of the Unknowns, in front of a large memorial amphitheatre. Here are buried four soldiers, from each of the two world wars and from the Korean and Vietnam wars, although the Vietnam victim has recently been identified. The site is permanently guarded by members of the Honor Guard, these elite soldiers immaculately dressed and precise in their movements as they execute the solemn 21 pace march in front of the tomb, the number 21 long having been symbolic in military salutes. I arrived just in time to watch the ceremony of the Changing of the Guard, conducted in silence save for the ritual movements of the guards and their commander, meticulous in his examination of the relieving sentinel's rifle and bayonet.
I took some time wandering around some of the more prominent memorials in the cemetery: that to the Challenger astronauts, a relief panel bearing slightly unflattering portraits of the seven victims; the masthead of the USS Maine, the explosion of which in Havana in 1898 lead to the Spanish-American War; memorials to the victims of various terrorist acts of recent history, including the Iran hostage affair and the Lockerbie disaster. Wandering among some of the graves behind Arlington House, I was particularly interested to find the grave of John Wesley Powell, leader in 1869 of the amazing exploratory expedition into the then-unknown lands out west which I had so recently visited.
Arlington House itself was an even great contrast with the western lands: I was now in something old, the elegant Greek Revival style mansion having been built in the early nineteenth century by the Custis family, related by marriage to George Washington, and into which General Lee later married. The house was set out much as it had been at the outbreak of the Civil War, when Lee had to make the unenviable decision as to whether to remain loyal to his country or to his state as it seceded from the Union.
I stood briefly outside the house, looking at the view across the cemetery and the Potomac River to the centre of Washington, the Washington Monument and the Capitol being clearly visible. On the Virginia side, the Pentagon was just visible among the trees, and every few minutes the peace was disturbed by the approach of another jet plane into Ronald Reagan National Airport a couple of miles to the south, the planes being required to steer a careful path avoiding passage too close to the Pentagon, the White House or various other vital strategic sites in the area.
After a brief look in the shop, I took the metro across the river to Smithsonian station, and headed out onto the Mall, the broad strip of land leading from Capitol Hill to the Washington Monument and beyond to the river, on which all the principal museums and attractions of the city are sited. I had lunch in the cafeteria of the Museum of Natural History, then headed back out to see some of the sights.
I was keen to go up the Washington Monument, a 169 metre high white obelisk offering unparalled views over this otherwise low-rise city. Unfortunately all tickets for the day were sold out, and this continued to be the case for the whole of my visit. Apparently it had recently reopened after a long closure for refurbishment, and as it was now open only its low-season hours, it was hard to obtain a ticket unless one arrived very early in the day. I settled instead for a stroll alongside the long reflecting pool on its west side towards the Lincoln Memorial, monument to another assassinated president, dominated by a huge seated sculpture of the great man in a typically pensive pose. The side walls of the monument are adorned by carvings of Lincoln's own words: the Gettysburg Address of 1863 and the Second Inaugural Address of 1865, made a month before his assassination.
After admiring the view from the steps of the monument, looking along the Mall at the Washington Monument and its reflection, the dome of the Capitol behind, I visited the monuments to two of the major conflicts of the latter half of the twentieth century. The Vietnam memorial, erected in 1982, is a simple black wall nearly 150 metres in length bearing the names of the more than 58000 casualties of the war. Many of those visiting were evidently seeking out the names of family members lost in the long conflict.
On the opposite side of the reflecting pool stands the Korean War Veterans' Memorial, erected in 1992 to a conflict many had long forgotten. This is dominated by the sculptures of combatmen on patrol, with a backdrop of polished black granite bearing the faces of hundreds of military personnel. The names are not inscribed on the wall, but I was interested to see nearby that a small booth contained computer terminals which allowed one to search for the name of a victim and view their service details.
I decided to wander back to the nearest Metro station via the White House, admiring the USA's most famous residence from the road outside before going on to Farragut West metro station. I was mildly annoyed to miss a train by seconds, but another soon came along. As it happened I arrived back at Van Dorn Street station just as Reba drove up in her car, bearing its distinctive registration plate of ``X-WING1''. (Personalised licence plates are very cheap in Virginia and thus extremely popular, giving one not least the benefit of a memorable number. It seems only natural that a longstanding fan of the ``Star Wars'' series choose a Star Wars related plate.)
I was feeling a little tired, possibly as a result of minor time zone confusion, and we therefore decided to stay in and eat a takeaway while watching television, I ordered a chicken pasta dish. By means of channel-hopping we were able to follow both the film ``Leaving Las Vegas'' (about a rather different life to that I'd experienced in the city of excess) and the Olympic coverage, some of the diving being particularly interesting even if there was a slight American bias to the programming.