So, in case you're wondering after that last post, the trip to Washington DC was worth it. Not only did I get to relax with some old friends, I got a guided tour of the district from history graduate student
Jared. I highly recommend his services.
After briefly seeing the Washington Monument (picture forthcoming, if I can salvage it) and being run away from the White House by security guards (don't worry, they were just closing down the sidewalk for the night), Jared suggested that we check out the World War II memorial. Good suggestion. This is where I began to be glad that I dragged my tripod all the way to DC. The memorial is really beautiful, and highly symbolic but I'm too lazy to explain it here. Feel free to email Jared.

Here's another shot, with the Lincoln Memorial in the background.

And while we were there, I decided to snap this shot of the Lincoln Memorial itself.

I had never noticed that the names of all the states are carved into the Memorial, nor had I noticed all the intricate details on the building. Very cool.

And here's where the happy accidents began. Despite every goof in the book, Lincoln managed to turn out OK.

As did this photo.

This is the Korean War memorial. It isn't very big, but it's probably the most haunting. Each of these soldiers are standing in rows and with the lighting, the trees and their facial expressions, they seem both immovable and vulnerable. It's eerie but in a good way.
And that's about it folks. The trip back was comfortable and arrived within a normal amount of time. Maybe I'll work on getting photos from my trip to Boston up soon and get rid of this ugly backlog of things I feel I need to post about. We'll see.