Where in the world am I?
May 21 2012, 7:13 am
Washington DC at the Washington and Lincoln Memorials
Memorial Day is a holiday observed annually in the United States on the last Monday of May. Formerly known as Decoration Day, it originated after the Civil War to commemorate fallen Union soldiers.
Over the next few days I’ll be sharing some photos and thoughts about the memorials in our nation’s capital. I’m going to begin with the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial. 
The Washington Memorial was built in honor of our founding father , George Washington, is the most prominent structure in Washington, D.C. and one of the city’s early attractions. The Monument, shaped like an Egyptian obelisk, stands 555′ 5 1/8″ tall, weighs more than 80,000 tons and offers views in excess of thirty miles. When the monument was under construction in 1854, the Washington National Monument Society ran out of money and the project ground to a halt. Twenty-five years later, the U.S. Government took over and completed the upper two-thirds of the structure. It was finished on December 6, 1884.
The monument was damaged during the Virginia earthquake of August 23, 2011 and remains closed to the public indefinitely while the structure is assessed and repaired.
The Monument photos were taken at the far end of the reflecting pool from the steps on the Lincoln Memorial.
On any given day hundreds of visitors can be found on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial taking in the sky line of the city. Inside the memorial our 16th Presaident, the Great Emancipator, sits immortalized in marble beneath the words: In this temple, as in the hearts of the people for whom he saved the Union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever.”
For more information on the Washington Memorial you can go to the National Park Service link http://www.nps.gov/wamo/index.htm
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