It's been a busy couple of weeks so no posts but I'm still here. This week I'm Philadelphia for the Triple Crown aka "Philly week". Mark Z and I started things in DC at the CSC Invitational on Sunday. I posted probably the most photos I ever have from one day of racing that you can check out here Usually we head up to Philly right after the race but this year we had an extra day in between races so we decided to stay in DC and see some sites. Our first stop was the Spy Museum which was pretty cool. They had all kinds of gadgets and stories from the beginning of spy history. If you get the chance definitely check it out.
After that we headed over to see the Korean War, Vietnam and WWII memorials. It was humbling to walk through and think about what it all meant. I thought about my grandfather while I walked around the WWII memorial.
I thought about his brothers who made it back and the one who didn't. Last summer I learned that his brother was an Army Ranger and was in one of the gliders that went behind enemy lines on D day. My grandfather never talked about it because it bothered him too much but his sister told me the story not long before she past away last summer . Somewhere their are still boxes of letters sent back from Europe and even souvenirs that the brothers sent home as they swept across Europe on their various duties. Even though it always bothered my grandfather I was proud of what he did. Probably should have told him.
The Vietnam Memorial was eerie to me, the names make it different. When you look down the wall and see all those names etched into the stone it seems more real. Flowers are laid at the base of the wall and wreaths or little American flags that flutter in the breeze. In some places kids had made cards that were still left from memorial day.
Families were there and looking for names of friends or relatives. It was mostly quiet. For a moment I wished that I had a name of my own to find but it didn't take long to remember what those names really stood for.
Once we finished there we walked over to the Lincoln Memorial. We read Lincoln's inaugural speech and maneuvered around the other tourists to try to get some photos of Lincoln. It's pretty fun being a tourist but credentials would have been nice, maybe a photo bib like we get at the races.
I guess that would take the fun out of being a tourist though.
Now we are up in Philly and I've got some time off in between races so I'll get caught up here. Maybe I'll even come up with some good material from race day.
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