We really don’t need any more proof that airline ticket prices are truly the most arbitrary thing in existence. But if we did, my night in Washington DC could certainly be it.
After a truly wonderful week spent in Ottawa visiting friends and family, I am now making the long and incremental journey to meet up with my estranged wife in Tuxtla, Chiapas, Mexico. The cheapest flights into Mexico are through Cancun, and the cheapest way from Ottawa to Cancun, according to the airline gods’ whimsy-du-jour, was to spend a night on the set of House of Cards (er, I mean, the capitol city of the most powerful nation on earth).
So with eleven hours, a camera, and the assumption that I’d be able to sleep on the next day’s plane ride (an assumption that did not take into account having the middle seat between two very rotund gentlemen), I set out to see the monuments to the visionaries that, with varying degrees of success and opposition, worked to build a better world.
First up: the Washington monument 
Chez Obama
I can only imagine the kind of farmers’ market the U.S. Department of Agriculture puts on.. 
Now, I confess, I thought the Lincoln memorial was just him in a chair, and didn’t realize that the chair sits in a marble re-creation of the Acropolis. I spent a while staring at the map wondering how I’d missed a mind-bogglingly large statue of the greatest president, only to realize I had to actually venture IN the giant Grecian temple. 
A tiny, foul-smelling elevator takes you down into an underground museum of sorts, depicting Lincoln’s struggles to maintain the Union, and his personal conviction that all humans are created equal, and that slavery has no place in said creation. A truly inspiring leader, orator, and man of faith.
Finally, having acquired a bike, I made my way much more efficiently to the beautiful and powerful monument of one Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
May we all have the audacity to believe.
(…like this guy, who despite five hurricanes has ensured that someone (often himself) has always been at the White House gates to remind the public/media/powers-that-be of some simple truths, 24/7/365 since 1981!)
saratreetravels 