Don't let the title fool you, the marble Mos Eisley on the Potomac isn't a bad place, at least for a #WednesdayWalk. If you can ignore the politichickens, the apparatchiks, and swampy weather it's not a bad place to be. Still plenty of imperial entanglements to be had though.
Wouldn't hardly be Washington DC if it were otherwise. Photos are from last spring when we were in town to shoot the cherry blossoms. DC has long had its own particular brand of scum and villainy but while we were there things got a little weird. 'Police raid home of anti-abortion activist and confiscate her fetus collection' was not what I was expecting the city to be in the news for.
Now where was I? Oh yeah, half a sign from the Lincoln Memorial. There's lots of memorials in DC, hard to walk a block and not run into one. In a way it's kind of morbid, there's an awful lot of dead people they want you to remember.
The cherry blossoms are all around the Tidal Basin so we had to drop in on the Jefferson Memorial while we were in the area.
Memorials make you hungry. Or maybe it was the gummy worms the guy on the scooter gave me. Either way, there's a food truck magnet on the National Mall, no matter what you're in the mood for there's probably somebody selling it.
Nothing says museum quite like an out of place castle. The Castle is the original Smithsonian building but now it's more offices and visitor center than museum.
There's a garden out back that's a lot more interesting.
Nothing says federal building quite like brutalist architecture. In this case it's the James V. Forrestal Building, the headquarters of the Department of Energy.
While DC lacks Mos Eisley's spaceport, the Metro almost makes up for it. Between the people watching and the convenience it's hard not to end up on the Metro.
The pandemic sure made riding it a lot more comfortable, never once saw it asses-and-elbows while we were there, which is a first.
Probably enough wandering for one day, time to hit the road!
(Excellent writing on your part BTW). My one memory of visiting the Smithsonian as a kid was asking one of the guides where they stored all of the bones of Giants that farmers turned over to them 100 years ago. The look on his face was profound.
In old newspapers, you'd read these stories of bones found that were anywhere from 7-8 feet tall, to as much as 15 feet tall beings. They'd call the Smithsonian, and someone would come out and take them away (the ones that didn't crumble to dust in a few hours as many did).
Later I read that one guy who ran that department, would have these "OOPArts" or: out-of-place-parts), put on a ship and dumped out at sea. It's strange what we do with information that we don't understand which challenges the current narrative.
Strange, hilarious, frightening, absurd, maddening. I don't understand it but we have a very long history of it.
Had not realized that was done but it definitely tracks. Curiously enough, that's the same thing we did with inconvenient chemical weapons after World War 2.
Ales Hrdlicka denied there were any giant skeletons. That pic of the old Smithsonian building brought an image to mind of Hrdlicka laughing madly as he watched a bonfire of giant skulls and bones burning.
As late as the 1970s the feds were proved to be burning American archeological artifacts.
What's interesting to me is that H. denisova has been claimed to have averaged 7' tall. Native Americans have Denisovan genetic admixture.
My grandmother on my fathers side is full-blooded Cherokee, and told us stories passed down from her ancestors about red-haired giants that ate their people ages ago. So I heard it from family first.
Here in my state they found a skeleton that was 13 ft tall, but no trace of it after contact with the Smithsonian... There are so many reports from articles in old newspapers about incredibly tall beings found in burial mounds, but where are the bones? We destroy that which we cannot understand...
I don't think they didn't understand anything. I think they just didn't want us to understand anything, so they burned the bones.
LOL, this title really got me!
Even as a child, when I heard that line, every time I thought... "I don't know, I've been to some pretty seedy places here on earth..."
Ha, it just seemed to fit. :D
Lol, I grew up in the hills and hollers of southeastern Kentucky so I just thought it was a city thing. As an adult I've been more than a couple places that'd put Mos Eisley to shame. Wouldn't mind visiting the place where they filmed it though.
I have always wanted to visit DC during the blossoms coming out have heard it is so beautiful, I have visited there three times for work meetings with a couple of Telecom companies, but was all work and no time to explore
Thanks for joining the Wednesday, its always fun for me to visit the walks from all around the world, getting a feel for communities where people live and what they see on their daily walks
The first time I was there for the cherry blossom festival it was entirely an accident but I liked it enough I've made two more trips there just for it since. It can be a bit of a crapshoot to plan though, the festival is three weeks long so you're just kind of guessing when the blossoms will be blooming when you're making arrangements.
If you ever get the chance you should explore DC, it's an interesting city. After the 9/11 attacks it was a nightmare to do much of anything but it's gotten a lot better since. Plus it's one of the easier cities in the US to explore, it's actually better to not have a vehicle there.
I hope to visit there again sometime and will allow plenty of time to explore the place walk around and see what I see
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I wouldn't shed a tear if Mordor on the Potomac suddenly ceased to be, though.
It’s interesting I was just near DC for the first time in my life and I wanted to go to the monuments but I felt it was a sour time to try and see them. I’m hoping to get back when things are better but it was sad to be there and think that way, when as a kid I thought it would be an amazing place.
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