Washington, DC

I've been to the capital a million times, but I don't have many pictures from all of these experiences. Recently, I've begun to take my camera along.

2006
Coming back from charlottesville virginia for thanksgiving, we made a quick stop at the national air and space museum (see my air and space pics). But we were soon off again to annapolis for the night.

2005
For the first time, I finally made it to the national cherry blossom festival. Check out my cherry blossom pics.

In july, we made it the trip again to check out the new national museum of the american indian. This is an interesting building with many great displays ranging from the eastern tribes to the eskimos. I have a few indian museum pics. It's not far from the capitol building, so I snapped a few capitol pics while I was in the neighborhood.

We went to mass at the national shrine (see my basilica pics) before taking in a game between the washington nationals and houston astros at old RFK stadium. This is the first year for the nationals in DC. See my nationals pics.

2004
June 9, 2004 was a sad date, but we headed to DC to witness a piece of history: the funeral procession for president ronald reagan. See my reagan pics of the occasion.

In august, I headed down to check out the new world war II memorial on the national mall. (FYI, here is a great map in PDF format showing all the sights on the mall.) I had heard all the critics and didn't really know what to expect, but this was really fantastic. It was a very soothing oasis on the bustling mall (see my world war II memorial pics).See also my pics of the FDR memorial and arlington national cemetery. I also got pictures of some old favorites: the washington monument, and lincoln and jefferson memorials.(see my memorial pics). These photos are from a distance, since I didn't have time to explore the memorials up close.

Then around thanksgiving, after visiting old town alexandria in virginia, I managed to check out three lesser known sites on the virginia side of the potomac: the iwo jima memorial, theodore roosevelt island, and the LBJ memorial grove. (see my virginia side memorial pics). These are all smaller sites, with much less tourists than the sites on the mall. I had lunch at another old stomping ground, bullfeathers of capitol hill. I sat right at the bar and had a shiner bock from texas and a very tasty cheeseburger. Then it was time to head to annapolis.