Smithsonian

For two days I had to amuse myself in Washington from breakfast until dinner and I spent the majority of that time in various museums of the Smithsonian Institution.  I can't recommend these enough.  Where else can you see the Hope Diamond...

...the capsule used by Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins on their moon shot in 1969...

...the Spirit of St Louis...

...the bones of a Neanderthal...

 ...and Julia Child's kitchen?

Nowhere, that's where.  I spent a whole day in the Air and Space Museum, and then a few hours each on the second day looking around the Natural History Museum and the American History Museum.

Mrs Walles joined me for the last one.  One of the feature attractions there is the Star Spangled Banner, the actual flag that flew over Fort McHenry at Baltimore as the British were repelled in 1814 and which inspired the words to the US national anthem.  It's not in a good state, having had bits snipped off over the years as souvenirs, and like the documents in the National Archive it is too fragile to allow photography.

Another noted attraction of the American History Museum is the collection of First Ladies' gowns.  Mrs Walles and I enjoyed speculating on the origins of some of the convoluted connections between early First Ladies and their respective presidents.  A surprising number of wives were absent, and two presidents had remarried while in office.  Quite a few First Ladies were sisters, daughters or nieces or in-laws.

Huge geek that I am I was very moved to see things like the Apollo 11 capsule in the Air and Space Museum.  But I was also moved by another spacecraft there for entirely different reasons.

That is SpaceShipOne, which one the X Prize a few years ago for being the first privately built vehicle to reach space (and which Richard Branson is now trying to commericialise).  But it was significant for me because when I decided to have a go at this writing lark back in 2003 the very first article I had published was about the X Prize.  I remember that it had an illustration of this very craft accompanying it, and now I've seen it in the flesh.

Back when the Smithsonian's collection was still housed in one building it gained the nickname of "America's attic", from the enormous jumble of things that it contained.  And while it has been split now into about a dozen museums, their close proximity (most are on the Mall) means you can still get that effect by meandering from one museum to the next and taking in as much as you can.  I only took in a tiny amount of the museums I visited - and there are still museums I didn't even get to - so I'll definitely be going back

Oh and did I mention that they are all free?  The US taxpayer spends almost a billion dollars a year funding all this for the greater good of the nation.  The Smithsonian really is a remarkable thing.  It was created out of a bequest by a British scientist, James Smithson who died in 1829.  He never visited America but left his fortune to the US government to increase and diffuse knowledge.  From what I've seen I'd say they've lived up pretty well to his wishes.

Here's a tip

Last night I was discussing the blog with an acquaintance and I said one of the things I was trying to get across was all the unexpected little differences between New Zealand and the US.  Since we were in a restaurant I gave the example of having to hold on to your cutlery between courses (not that I said cutlery, since that only means knives here - yet another little difference).

I almost brought up tipping as an example, too, but then realised it wasn't a very good example because I knew about tipping before I came here.  What I didn't know, however, was the details and mechanics of it all.  It's been an adjustment, but it's just something you have to get used to.  Initially I was reserved about handing over tips because in New Zealand I think that many people are embarrassed to take a tip.  But here they want your money, and many don't mind fawning over you to get it.

If you go into a restaurant and order some food eventually the bill will arrive.  The first thing you have to do is take the total and add on 15-20% (and in your head, no less...I mean c'mon!).  As a New Zealander, with a mild repugnance towards the idea of tipping, it took me quite a while to get used to adding on so much for service, even when the service is quite bad.  There are people who say that you don't have to tip at all if the service is bad enough, but I've yet to see anyone walk the walk on that one.  But it's just a part of life here, and it's how the waiting staff make their money, so even though everyone bemoans tipping they all go along with it.

It took me even longer to get used to how the tip is paid.  The exact approach depends on whether you are paying by cash or card and whether you have exact change or not.  Many places you pay at the table, others you pay at the counter.  There are apparently subtle clues to tell you which is which, though I haven't become attuned to all of these yet.  Tips are only for service, so in places where you aren't served at your table you don't have to tip...except that there are some slightly ambiguous places like the barbecue joint we frequent where you order and pay as you enter but someone brings out your food.  That mystery was solved when we found that they had a tip jar near the door.

Restaurants aren't the only things that demand tips, though.  When you arrive at any reasonably big hotel you practically have to fight off the small army of bell boys trying to snatch your bags so that they can get a tip from you.  If the doorman of the hotel gets you a cab you have to slip them a couple of bucks.  And the cab driver needs a tip - notionally in the same 15-20% range but generally whatever makes the fare up to a good round number which is often much more than that.  Airport shuttle drivers get a tip if they lift your bags.  Hairdressers expect a tip.

If you're living in a small town like we are then tipping isn't a day to day thing.  But in a big city like New York the money flows very freely - has to flow freely or the service dries up.  On the other hand if you tip well, and they remember you, you will often get the royal treatment.  So it can be hard for the tipping-averse to get accustomed to, but in the end it is worth it.  That's my tip to you.

National Archives

One of the things I was rushing away from the White House to see was the National Archives.

That's the only photo I got because inside no photography is allowed at all.  There was a long line to get in and then more waiting in an antechamber tantalisingly close to my goal: the Constitution, Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights.  My only disappointment was that the Magna Carta which is usually on display was away being restored.  But it was only a very slight disappointment.

These are housed in what they call the Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom (yes, well, I'll let them off this time, they're obviously very proud of these documents) which is enormous and decorated a pair of murals of the signing of the declaration and the signing of the constitution.  Unfortunately the entire thing is lit so poorly that it's hard to see these as the artist intended, but they are still impressive.    You can see them online here probably better than I could in person.

The low light is due to the state of the documents which have had a tumultuous life and weren't always looked after that well.  Despite being restored recently it's very difficult to make out much of the original text.  But the larger stuff is still plain enough, like the "We the people" at the top of the Constitution and the "July 4 1776" on the Declaration. I saw John Hancock's flamboyant signature on the Declaration, from which we get the expression "John Hancock" for signature, though it wasn't quite as flamboyant as I was expecting.  And there were also recognisable signatures from other famous figures like Jefferson, Adams, Franklin and the like.  I was also amused by the error in the Constitution, which one of the guards pointed out, where Pennsylvania is spelled wrong.

During busy times visitors are let into the rotunda in groups of about fifty, and you only have a few minutes to look around before the next group comes.  But it's all you really need.  Before you go in a guard gives you a little pep talk and tells people not to try to read every last jot and tittle, but that doesn't stop people from trying and eventually being moved on.  You really go for the experience of seeing these historic documents first hand (even if they are behind thick layers of bullet proof glass).  I'd heard so much about them, and there they were in front of me.

It was well worth the wait.

The White House

I didn't have time to take a tour of the White House while we were in Washington, but I definitely wasn't going to let the trip pass without at least walking past it, which I did on the morning of the last day.  It was quite close to our hotel, though it was a bit of a maze finding my way there (I assume this is intentional, to help thwart evildoers).  But I just headed in what I thought was roughly the right direction and eventually found myself on a thin path on the south side, about two metres wide, full of people.  As you can see there was a big iron fence which somewhat obstructed the view.

 The bars were wide enough to fit the camera through, though, to get some fence-free shots.  In some ways, then, the photos were better than actually being there.

It looked smaller than I expected, and far away.  Though there are other attached buildings hiding behind the trees on either side.

The tourists on the path were from all nations, and there was a cacophony of languages being spoken.  The one uniting thing, though, was that every so often out of the babbling brook of unfamiliar sounds I could hear the single word "Obama" spoken in a dozen different tongues.

Once I had my photos and had paused for a few minutes to admire the view, I moved on.  I had two more memorials to see and then three museums after that.  I'm sure I'll visit 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue again sometime for a closer look, assuming that it isn't shaken to the ground or blown away in the meantime.  Somehow I doubt it - if it survived being burned by the British in 1814 I'm sure it will survive anything.

Here's the updated map.

Jefferson Memorial

Washington and Lincoln are all very well, but my man is Thomas Jefferson, and here is his memorial, across the Tidal Basin from the other two.

It's very much in the style of the Lincoln Memorial, though not as large.  Lincoln's is supposed to be a Greek temple, but this is more like the Pantheon in Rome.  It's more open on the inside, too, where we find the man himself.

My, he's even bigger than Lincoln - what did they eat back then?  But he was a larger than life character.  He founded the University of Virginia, wrote the Declaration of Independence and served as the third President of the United States.  During his presidency he made the Louisiana Purchase, buying pretty much all the land between the Mississippi and the Rockies from Napolean.  Napolean.  It would have been impressive if he had bought a bag of peanuts or a used button from Napolean - let alone over two million square kilometres of land.

Once he'd bought the land he sent Lewis and Clark to explore it.  He hoped they would find some living mammoths (that's how little was known about the interior).

He was a great man, though he hasn't always been recognised as such, and I'm glad he has a great building to remember him.

World War II Memorial

The National World War II Memorial is big, impressive and interesting, though for me the least moving of the three war memorials I saw in Washington.

This is America, of course, so the emphasis is on America (hardly surprising).  Yet the Vietnam Memorial is similarly focussed on the US but it immediately struck me with a whole swag of emotions.  Perhaps the difference is that, even though the WWII Memorial is dedicated to those who served in the war, those who fought are not really acknowledged in the architecture.  There was an installation at the back which Mrs Walles and I speculated was intended to convey the scale of losses - but there was nothing to confirm that was what it meant.

 

The memorial is big and round with a nice fountain in the centre.  Around the outer edges there are markers for each state and territory.  On either side there are tall monuments marked "Pacific" and "Atlantic".

There are some nice brasses.  Some had images, like these.

 

Others had little quotes, from President Truman and other figures of the time.

I suppose that for America the Second World War was a kind of coming of age.  It emerged the other side a global superpower, changed in many ways from before the war.  Perhaps this would explain the attitude the memorial seems to convey - not so much a sombre memorial of tragic losses, but more a celebration of a struggle won.  And it would also explain why this memorial has such a prime place on the Washington map, right between the Washington and Lincoln monuments, suggesting it commemorates an event on par with the Revolution and Civil War, two other key turning points in US history.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it isn't your run-of-the-mill war memorial.  Which isn't a bad thing.  It's still a good place to visit and reflect on the events of the war, but as an outsider I was far more moved by the Vietnam and Korean war memorials, of which there will be more in future posts.

And speaking of the Washington map, here's one with the position of the memorial marked.

Lincoln Memorial

The Lincoln Memorial stands at the north end of the Mall.  Here's a view of it from afar, looking from the Washington Monument, past the World War II Memorial.

Now normally there would be a beautiful glassy body of water called the Reflecting Pool in the picture above, but unfortunately they've dug it up to fix its foundations so all we saw was a muddy streak with a few diggers working away. I guess I'll just have to go back at a later date to get the full effect as intended. 

Nevermind, the Greek temple affair that is the Lincoln Memorial was still fantastic and beautiful, as long as you didn't turn around.  Mrs Walles and I made our way there on our first night in D.C. which made for an especially pretty sight which my photography doesn't come close to capturing.

You can just spy the man himself peeking out between two columns.  I returned another day and got this view during daylight.

There are a lot of steps leading up to the building which are hidden by the perspective, though the tiny size of the people in front of the columns hints at the distance from the camera to the top step. Everything about it is oversize and combined with the Greek architecture you feel that this must be a very old building, yet it was only built at the beginning of the twentieth century.  The names of all the states are engraved around the top on the outside.

 

The memorial isn't lit by day but in this photo you can just see the statue of Lincoln staring down towards me (well, actually towards the Washington Monument and Capitol, but it's hard to tell at this distance!).  Here's the man himself, from inside.

He's a big fellow.  I knew Abraham Lincoln was tall, but this is ridiculous!  There is more decoration on the inside.  There are murals up the top of the walls, almost too high to see.  And important speeches are engraved on either side wall.  To his right is the Gettysburg Address.

It's a good thing he kept it short.

I was under the impression (largely from The Simpsons) that people come to the Lincoln Memorial to ask Honest Abe for advice, but all I saw were tourists and Mrs Walles has never heard of such a thing, so it's probably apocryphal.  He looks like he's taking a well-deserved rest (which I think is the intention) so he's probably not keen to dispense advice anyway.  He certainly didn't have an opportunity to rest on his laurels after leading the north to victory in the Civil War.  The poor fellow was assassinated in this very town while the last fighting was still going on further south.

So two presidential memorials down, two to go. Here's the Lincoln Memorial on the map.

The District

How can you be in the United States and yet not in the United States?  Well one way is to visit the capital.  The D.C. in Washington D.C. refers to the District of Columbia, which is the federal territory in which the city lies.  It was originally a square of land ten miles on a side which was ceded by the states of Maryland and Virginia and cut in two by the Potomac River which forms their border.  Eventually the bit on the Virginia side returned to Virginia, so the official capital is all on the Maryland side, but it still isn't part of Maryland or any other state.

One bizarre side effect of this is that those who live in the district have no representation in the federal government.  The district isn't a state, so it isn't allowed senators, and they have only a non-voting delegate in the lower house.  The locals are understandably annoyed by this.  I saw one number plate that played on a well known revolutionary slogan and read "Washington D.C.: Taxation without Representation".

Since relatively few people live in the district (and they aren't represented) there has been little attempt to rectify this anomaly.  I imagine it's a knotty problem and any resolution would require tinkering with the core of the constitution which is not something they do lightly here.  And, to be honest, it seems things could be worse - all you have to do is move over the border to one of the dinkum states and suddenly you are enfranchised again.

Anyway it seems to be a benevolent tyranny to which the city is subject.  It has certainly allowed a pleasant city to spring up in what was once just a swamp.

The relatively small size of the capital also means it is easy to get around.  I was on foot, so pretty much everything I saw was within walking distance of the Washington Monument, which was near the hotel.  That was fine, though, because there is so much right there.  Here's a map I drew which shows nothing to scale but gives you a rough idea of how things are laid out (click for a larger version).

I've heard you can get maps elsewhere on the internet, but who needs precision and good looks when you've got me with a free drawing program?  Each of the little boxes up there represents something of interest that I'll be talking about, and I'll label them as I go along.  We've already had the Washington Monument, which is pretty much in the middle of the long, thin park called the National Mall.  There was a good view of that in yesterday's post.  It's about two miles long.  The Tidal Basin lies on one side of the Mall and beyond that the Potomac River proper with Virginia facing you across the river.  On the other side of the Mall is the majority of the city and, eventually, Maryland.

There is a lot of masonry to get through, but today I thought I would post a nice green shot of Constitution Gardens in the Mall.

Granted it does include the Washington Monument, but that's hard to avoid, and anyway it looks rather good framed by the trees and water.  Just think of it as the world's largest piece of garden art.

Washington Monument

If I had to choose one word to describe Washington D.C. it would be monumental, no part more so than the aptly named Washington Monument.

It is a lot bigger than I thought it would be.  It's an iconic structure, and the tallest in Washington (by law, I believe).  It's almost 170 metres tall, which makes it very visible from around the city.   From the Lincoln Memorial, over a kilometre away...with the Capitol  in the distance...

From across the water at the Jefferson Memorial...

From the opposite side of the inlet of the Potomac River they call the Tidal Basin...

And from the Capitol...

It makes it easy to find for tourists - just look for the tallest thing you can see and head that way.

There is a lift inside that you can take up to an observation deck but unfortunately we couldn't get tickets.  Still we were able to walk right around it, touch it and bask in its magnificence.  There is a line some way up where you can see one kind of stone was used below and another above, invisible from a distance but quite clear close up.  This is because the thing was only half built then abandoned for about twenty years before being finished with slightly different marble.  It is surprising, today, that a monument dedicated to George Washington could be treated with such indifference (it wasn't the first time, either, more on that another day), but all such hesitation is gone and it is now one of the most popular attractions in the country.

The night we visited it was buzzing with tourists, and children were playing sports in the grass all around which gave it a very wholesome festival atmosphere.  As we departed to see what other monumental masonry we could find the Marine Corps Jazz Band started up (who knew there was such a thing - I guess their mission is to put the enemy off their marching pace) and that just added to the holiday feeling.  It wasn't buzzing quite so much when I passed it on other days.  Purely by chance we had visited it at probably the best time possible.

It is very impressive and all the more so because there is nothing around to rival it.  In New York everything is huge, and so you can't appreciate just how huge everything is.  In Washington there are huge buildings but they are laid out sparsely and everything feels much grander.

And the Washington Monument is the grandest of them all.

Philadelphia station

It was planes, trains and automobiles for Mrs Walles and I as we made our way to Washington D.C.  We dragged ourselves out of bed at 4:30am and as soon as it was light drove to the airport at Harrisburg, parked the car in long term parking and then took a ten minute cab ride to the train station down town.  Later we would pass the car again on the train, as the railroad runs right past the airport, within spitting distance of where we parked the car.  Ah, well, such is life.

Intercity passenger rail in the US was consolidated about 40 years ago into one government-owned corporation known as Amtrak (communism!), which runs just a few services around the country.  We're very lucky really to be able to take the train as we did - some states aren't served at all.

Anyway, our train trip was in two parts, one to Philadelphia on a very sparsely populated train and then on to D.C. on a very full one.  From Harrisburg the train runs through pleasant farmland and relatively small towns (the exception being Lancaster) until it hits the outlying suburbs of Philadelphia.  Then the view deteriorates as you get closer to the inner city, but that doesn't matter so much because once you reach the station your breath is taken away.

This is Philadelphia's 30th St station.  If it looks familiar that's because it crops up on screen sometimes.  It is the station featured in the opening scenes of the film Witness where the heroine sees the murder take place.  It's also a junction for Amtrak, and according to Wikipedia the third busiest station in their system.  We had to wait a while here so we got some lunch and I looked around and took some pictures.

Opened in the thirties, it is an enormous cathedral of transportation.  The scale is hard to capture with a camera.  The pictures above are just part of the main hall of the station.  In the bottom right of the second one you can make out a tall, dark statue.  It's a memorial to railroad workers lost in combat and it looks tiny in that picture, but here's a closer view showing it towering over waiting passengers.

It's a grand piece of architecture, with a lot of neoclassical influence.  In an adjacent hall one of the walls is covered with an enormous sculpted panel entitled The Spirit of Transportation.

 

Pretty heroic stuff.  But, impressive as it was, even it paled by comparison with what I saw once we arrived in Washington.  But that's a story for another day.

Trouble 't Hill

So the congress has agreed to raise the US government's debt ceiling, and everyone here can stop holding their breath.  That's good news for me.  Mrs Walles and I are off to Washington, DC on Thursday, and had this crisis dragged on I'm sure Obama would have been calling on me for advice.  As it is I can relax and take a look at some of the excellent museums while Mrs Walles attends her conference.  If you need me though, Barack, I'll be down the street.

Since we'll be staying at a hotel there should be internet access and so I hope to be able to write some blogs from there.

It's going to be an action-packed few days, though.  We're taking the train, which I like, and it's practical in the circumstances, but it does mean driving to the airport to park the car then getting a cab to the train station, so it will be an early start on Thursday.  Mrs Walles wants to show me around the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial and more, which we'll be fitting into the evenings.  During the day we'll go our separate ways and I want to see as much as I can: particularly the Smithsonian but also the National Archives (where the constitution and declaration of independence are on display), the White House, the Capitol, and some independent museums if I can.

As I say, I'll try to blog as I go along.  If I don't post much in the next couple of days its because of preparations, if I don't post much after that it's because I'm taking in the sights.

On the road

Mrs Walles and I did go to Long Island last weekend but we never made into New York City because of the intense heat wave that was plaguing most of the country.  Long Island is the bit that sticks out to the right of Manhattan, which makes it a good base for visiting the city, but even though it was only a few minutes away, it didn't seem worth it just to melt in the city, when we could melt perfectly well where we were.  So we left the Big Baked Apple for later in the year.

On the trip I decided to start keeping note of which state number plates I'd seen.  I'm always on the lookout for unusual ones, but I was at the point where I'd see one and couldn't be sure if I'd seen it before.  It's a good travel game racking up the states and also seeing what each one looks like.  I'm particularly fond of the New Hampshire ones with the aggressive state motto "live free or die" (numbers blurred to protect the innocent).

It's an old revolutionary slogan, I believe, but it always makes me think of the citizens of New Hampshire as a testy bunch, always ready to open a can o' whip ass whenever things aren't going their way.

Anyway, just on the trip to New York and back I counted plates from Texas, New York, New Jersey, Florida, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Michigan, Georgia, Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Carolina, North Carolina, Washington D.C., Tennessee, Maine, Quebec, Delaware, Missouri, New Hampshire, Nevada, California, Wisconsin, Ontario, Illinois, Colorado and Indiana.  That's 26 states, just over half, plus Washington and two Canadian provinces.  If you needed proof of the centrality and importance of New York (not that you really did) there you have it.

Delaware Water Gap

So last weekend Mrs Walles and I went to New York (the state, not the city...well, actually we did pass through the city...it's complicated and I'll get to that another day).  Our favourite spot to stop on the way is just on the other side of the border with New Jersey, at the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, or the DWG as we usually call it.

The Delaware river is an important landmark in the northeast US. It marks the borders of several states, including the one that shares its name.  It is a very old river, pre-dating the already old geological ructions that produced the stubby mountains known as the Appalachians (I'm happy to describe them as stubby, since they are compared to, say, the Rockies or the Southern Alps, but it's all relative - they wouldn't look so stubby if I had to walk up one).

Anyway, because the river is older than the mountains it cuts through them as it pleases, its channel having carved out a place for itself as the mountains rose around it.  This creates what is called a water gap in this part of the world, which is basically a river gorge cutting through a mountain range.  It's lucky for us, too, because it provides a convenient breach in the mountains which the interstate highway takes advantage of, along with the railroad.

Apart from the convenience the DWG is spectacularly beautiful, and I highly recommend a visit.  Although the Delaware is an important river it is still relatively small at this point (and relative to other American rivers it is also small, similar in flow to the Waikato River).

At the DWG the river cuts through a ridge, called Blue Mountain on the Pennsylvania side and Kittatinny Mountain on the New Jersey side, and the walls are almost vertical, yet still heavily wooded, like the whole region.  Here's Kittatinny, seen from Turtle Beach, a little sandy spot beside the river.

The river bends to the right once it reaches Kittatinny, so that's the side of Blue Mountain to the right of the frame, with an equally spectacular vertical wall facing Kittatinny across the river.  I only managed to get a snap of the face of Blue Mountain from the road a couple of days later, on the way back towards Pennsylvania.

Incidentally, since the river forms the border, all of these photos show two states, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

My favourite of the photos we took (which required a return visit to the car to swap cameras after mine ran down - but it was worth it) is of Kittatinny framed by the lush vegetation at the side of the river.

Doesn't it make you want to go there?  It makes me want to go back.

Lincoln people together

There wasn't a heck of a lot to see from the hotel room we stayed in in York last week, as you can see.

We weren't in the thick of it.  The most interesting thing about that picture, as far as I can tell, is the road running through the centre of it.  That's US Route 30.  If you turned left on it and drove and drove you'd eventually end up in Atlantic City, New Jersey on the Atlantic coast.  If you turned right you'd eventually find yourself in Astoria, Oregon on the Pacific Coast.  It's a road that runs across America.

There are several of these, a notable one being Interstate 80 which also runs through Pennsylvania on its way from New York to San Francisco.  But even though it has been superseded, Route 30 is interesting because it was made up largely from large parts of the Lincoln Highway, the first highway to cross the country.  Many stretches of Route 30 still follow the Lincoln Highway, though the bit in the picture above is not one of them, but rather one of the many bypasses that evade town centres that the original highway passed right through.  On the whole, though, Pennsylvania is a good state in which to follow the historic route.  It's a nice drive and some stretches (such as west of Lancaster) give a real taste of what highway travel must have been like in the US during the first half of the twentieth century.


It's said that the Lincoln Highway inspired the vast Interstate Highway System which eventually put it and its friends in the shade, after President Dwight D. Eisenhower, then in the army, travelled along it in 1919.  It may not be as famous as Route 66, but it has outlasted it (lasting almost a hundred years is itself an impressive feat here) and gathered a lot of history along the way.  I think Route 30 deserves to be remembered, even if it is by a foreigner who doesn't drive.