Monthly Archives: May 2010

Imitation Elsie makes a few stops around DC

In the American History Museum she spotted this vintage sign.

She had to get into the action with this photo of the presidents.

The Mall and green pond.

At the presidential podium.

Nose to nose with a bison. In front of the monument, just before heading up. At the top of the Washington Monument with the White House over her shoulder.
At the Lincoln Memorial. At the Bureau of Engraving and Printing with a million dollars!

Inside the space man suit during Earth Day on the Mall.In the garden outside the Department of Agriculture display for Earth Day. At the WWII memorial.

In front of the oh-so-cool state license plate display.

At the Capital.On the bus headed downtown.She used the subway (Metro) to get around quickly from place to place.
In between stations she hitched a ride. After a long day in the city, she needed to relax a little.

FDR memorial in DC as seen by Imitation Elsie

This memorial is beautiful.


Text below copied from this site:

http://history1900s.about.com/library/weekly/aa061401a.htm

For decades, three presidential monuments stood along the Tidal Basin in Washington D.C. as a reminder of America’s past. In 1997, a fourth presidential monument was added – the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial.
In August 1955, ten years after FDR’s death, Congress established a commission to create a memorial to Roosevelt, the 32nd U.S. president. Four years later, a location for the memorial was found. The memorial was to be located half way between the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, along the Tidal Basin.
Though several design competitions were held over the years, it wasn’t until 1978 that a design was chosen. The commission chose Lawrence Halprin’s memorial design, a 7.5 acre memorial that represented both President Roosevelt and his era. With only a few changes, Halprin’s design was built.
Unlike the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials which are compact, covered and focused on a single statue of each president, the FDR memorial is vast, uncovered, and focused on numerous statues, quotes, and waterfalls.
Halprin’s design honors FDR by telling the story of the president and the country in a chronological order. Since Roosevelt was elected to four terms of office, Halprin created four “rooms” to represent the twelve years of Roosevelt’s presidency.
The rooms, however, are not easily defined and the memorial is more accurately described as a long, meandering path, bordered by walls made of red South Dakota granite.

Off we go to Washington DC

Thanks to some wonderful friends I was able to spend a few days site-seeing around DC. Many, many thanks to the Cortez family. Lots more thanks to Liz for putting this mini-vaca together.

Here are some views from the top of the Washington Monument:

To get to the top of the monument you must have a ticket. We left the house at 630ish to get on the bus that takes us to downtown DC. We immediately hiked over to the monument. It was about 930 AM. All of the tickets were gone. The next day we caught an even earlier bus and arrived at the monument about 815 AM. The line was already very long. We reached the window at 915 and they still had a few tickets remaining. One of the time slots available was 930AM so we took those tickets and headed up the hill to the magnificent monument. A few minutes later we found ourselves at the top looking out the windows at the beautiful view.