What can be a more patriotic way to spend the Memorial Day Weekend than in Washington DC, visiting the war memorials and seeing the sites of Washington, our nations  capitol?

Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, can be more American than standing on Constitution Avenue with your back to the White House, eating a hot-dog in the shadow of the Washington Monument,  as members of Rolling Thunder slowly roll by!  This is how my Memorial Day Weekend started!

Well, it really started Saturday morning leaving Bradford at 6AM!  After filling up my wife's Oldsmobile Alero for exactly $45.00 (at $3.95 per gallon) and heading south on 219.

Being the epitome of "cheap beyond reason", I planned our route with a yard-sale map of the Eastern United States, that was a real antique, REALLY! And not worth the $.10 I paid for it!   Because I'm cheap to a fault, AND several new roads have been built in PA since the early 1950's, INCLUDING MODERN INTERSTATES,  we headed toward Washington DC, by going down 219.   That's 219 south of rt. 80!  

 It was a like a roller coaster! Up and down hills and constant turns, BUT I'm glad we took it as far as we did, for the sites we got to see. Pennsylvania is absolutely gorgeous, and back roads like 219 is the way to see it!

At our breakfast stop somewhere west of Clarion, I spoke to a gentleman who suggested we take rt. 99.  A more direct route than what we were taking,  but not on my map.

Once we were re-oriented and on track on a NEW route, we made good time. The road was flatter and straighter and I'm sure we started getting better gas mileage right away!

We ended up getting 34.7 on the way down and 32.2 miles per gallon on the way home.  We took a flatter route on the way home, but we drove faster, and had the air conditioner on all the way back. Still, a respectable gas mileage none-the-less.  As it turned out, we paid $3.95 for gas in Bradford and a day later in Washington, putting $45 in to fill the tank both times.

And speaking of good gas mileage, that is one thing that I mentioned to my wife over and over ... the observation that all the other cars on the road seemed to be smaller, gas efficient models.  There were little or none of the "big red-neck pickup trucks" that seem to be the "main" vehicle you see in Bradford.  It seemed to me that all the cars on the road with us were smaller "high mileage" vehicles.   A story on CNN today confirmed my suspicions. A lot of people driving the big, wasteful, gas guzzlers stayed home on Memorial Day Weekend.

The reason we went to Washington this Memorial Day Weekend was two fold. One, my wife has been pestering me for years to take her to Washington to see the sites. She desperately wanted to visit the Smithsonian Institute, and other Washington attractions.

AND our daughter just married another Bradford resident who is stationed in Washington in the Air Force.  They are living just outside Washington DC, where our new son-in-law works. My wife and I really missed our grandson, who we haven't seen in over a week, so we decided to make the trip!

What better a weekend to visit the nations capitol than Memorial Day Weekend? It don't get any more patriotic than that!

As you may expect, I'm not one for the ordinary, regular, common, every day Washington experience.  I'm more for the "off the beaten path", out of the way, what others don't get to see, kind of tour, but my wife wanted to see the "generic sites".

We parked outside Washington, and took the metro or subway into the city. 

We came out of the subway very close to the Washington Monument, across the street from the center of the Smithsonian Institute.   Then we did a lot of walking.  And picture taking!

Right off the bat, my family teased me because I was "con-ed" into buying a "free tourist map" from a street vendor.  The guy asked for a "donation of five or ten dollars" for the map, but I gave him only two, so I wasn't taken as bad as some other gullible tourist were, AND I ended up with a map infinitely more valuable than my ten-cent, yard-sale road map we used to get here!   Two dollars for a map with all of Washington's main attractions was a bargain compared to all the four and five dollar beverages  they bought (regular one liter bottles) that would have cost only 89 cents in Bradford.  My daughter had an ice cream sandwich that might have cost $6 ... so my $2 guide map was a bargain .... even though we noticed later you can get one free on nearly every corner!  

The Washington Monument Saturday Afternoon Memorial Day Weekend.

"Please respect the Memorial, no wading, no coins" .... So says the sign, BUT people with hot, sweaty feet came from all over the world to wash them here!  AND to sit here throwing coins in the water!

After we visited the war memorials, and the fountains at the head of reflection pool, we took a stroll down Constitution Avenue.

It was at this point I realized something quite profound. All the graffiti, bumper stickers, political poster and such that we had seen the whole trip were anti-president, anti-republican and anti-conservative.  In two days in the Washington area, we did not see one single right-wing conservative bumper sticker, poster or graffiti.

This was posted up and down Constitution Avenue on both sides of the street:

Now THESE make-shift graffiti signs WERE shown the respect they deserve! When people came upon them, they would gingerly step around or over the "art work"!  These were treated like they were precious works of art.  Nobody, but nobody would step on these.

Further on up Constitution Avenue heading toward the capitol building, we passed the IRS, and THIS photo needs no caption:

What can I say?

Next we came to this building .... One I thought for sure the Bush administration would have converted to housing, or condos for the special interests or his favorite lobbyist:

Then, for an education of a lifetime, we visited the Smithsonian Institute ....

Thanks for the helpful signs outside the building ... signs like:

I knew we were in the right place ... The building that conserves and preserves history for the whole planet ... tirelessly and painstainkenly restoring artifacts from all over the planet ... you know, the building with busted out front windows near their main entrance!

Maybe the IRS should charge them homeless guys taxes to buy glass for the windows at the Smithsonian!  I would expect to see boarded up store-front windows in Bradford Pa, but NOT the main building of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC!

..... But let's go inside!

Great! Gold plated trash can lids! Just what we need! ... And highly polished marble floors ....

Floors so clean you can do almost anything on them!   ....

That would explain this freshly opened CONDOM WRAPPER!

A condom wrapper would have been one of the last things I would have expected to see in the Smithsonian Institute.

After the Smithsonian, we went back to the Monument for one last view. Here is the White House in the background. I waved to poor George.  Poor guy. Buy the looks of all the graffiti, posters and bumper stickers we seen all over town, HE is one of the only few people in the world who can not walk the streets of Washington DC!  He is a prisoner of that heavily barricaded  White House.  Clinton could walk the streets of Washington and be praised by his fellow citizens.  Bush can not come out of hiding behind the fortified walls.  Bush is a prisoner in his own "green zone". 

As the Rolling Thunder bikes slowly filed in one, by one, or in small groups from all over the country, I was actually astounded by the fact that not ONE bike had a pro-Bush/Chaney sticker on it, and quite the contrary! Some or most had ANTI-Bush/chaney stickers on them! Imagine ... A right-wing, conservative, "pro-war" group like Rolling Thunder with anti government stickers on them! I was dumbfounded!

Funny, because at the end of the day, as I stood there and photographed the Capitol Building, I couldn't help but notice it tilted decidedly to the RIGHT!  No kidding:

Our trip was a quite enlightening trip for me. We should all be so lucky as to visit Washington DC for a Memorial Day Weekend at least once in our lives.

There is noting like eating a hot-dog on Constitution Ave, in the shadow of the Washington Monument, standing with your butt facing the White House, on a sidewalk that says "Bush = Lies", surrounded by Rolling Thunder bikers, some of which have  "Jail Bush" stickers on their bikes, with folk artist playing anti-war protest songs in the background, on Memorial Day Weekend in Washington DC!  What an American experience!

Sunday night we returned to Bradford, where we got the "privilege" to ride on the worst roads we encountered on the whole trip. The black ghetto sections of Washington DC had better roads!  

Yesterday, Memorial Day found us in Allegany State Park ... Eating hot-dogs in my American Flag shorts teaching my grandson the fine art of graffiti!   LOL!

It's great to be an American!

Can't wait for the Forth of July!  

Stony!

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