We spend most of today exploring the National Mall starting near the Capitol and then walking to the Lincoln Memorial before returning back to the hotel. In a way we continue where we left the previous day, at the Capitol. There are lots of people on the Mall and we stop for multiple interesting sights like a scale model of the solar system, it is really informative to see the distances between the planets even at scale.
Next we stop at the Smithsonian Castle, an 1855 building that serves as an information center for visitors to the Mall. Here are also the remains of Smithson whose donation established the well known Smithsonian Museums even though he never visited the United States.
We continue on along the mall and slowly but surely making our way towards the Lincoln Memorial which anchors the West side of the National Mall.
As we arrive at the Washington Monument we get a nice view of the White House, our goal for the next day. We also find out that Kilroy was here, good for him I guess.
Next we continue along the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool with some great views of the Washington Monument and of course the Lincoln Memorial, we are almost there.
The Memorial is very popular and has a huge statue of Lincoln with a few of his famous speeches immortalized in marble including the second inaugural address and the Gettysburg address.
Now it is time to explore this end of the National Mall for a while starting with the squirrels, there are quite a few of them and quite cute.
There are a few War Memorials including the Korean War Veterans Memorial which is interesting as it is set up as a sculpture garden with soldiers attacking through the garden. There are also beautiful fall colors everywhere, we are here at a great time to see the colors.
And then it is time to leave the National Mall passing the Federal Reserve and the point zero for all highways in the United States before eating dinner and then returning to the hotel for the night.
