Halloween, All Hallows night, the 31st October.
We booked into Montgomery Council Park in Clarksburg, Maryland for nine days. Clarksburg is just north of Rockville where Bill's cousins Bill and Marilyn live. We took the half hour Metro train from Shady Grove into Washington DC and came out at Union Station. It is the largest train station in North America with the local Metro and interstate trains comming and going from here. The statue is of Christopher Columbus and in the summer would have had a lovely pool and fountain around it but is now drained for the winter. It is still clear and sunny, but the wind is bitterly cold and we are very pleased to have our leather jackets. 
The United States Capital Building stands at Capital Hill facing west down the National Mall, looking towards the Washington Monument and beyond to the Lincoln Memorial, and across the river to Arlington National Cemetery. When the senate is in session there is a flag on the corner of the building over the senate and when congress is in session a flag flies over the congress chamber, and when both are in session there are two flags flying. Of course it is not in session at the moment as the campaign for President is in it's final few days before the American Elections.
The Washington Monument is about two thirds of the way down the National Mall and is between the Thomas Jefferson Monument and the White House. It is circled by flags of all the States and no other building in the capital can be higher than the monument.
Thomas Jefferson - political philosopher, architect, musician, book collector, scientist, horticulturist, diplomat, inventor, and third President of the United States - looms large in any discussion of what Americans are as a people. Jefferson left to the future not only ideas but also a great body of practical achievements. President John F. Kennedy recognized Jefferson's accomplishments when he told a gathering of American Nobel Prize winners that they were the greatest assemblage of talent in the White House since Jefferson had dined there alone. With his strong beliefs in the rights of man and a government derived from the people, in freedom of religion and the separation of church and state, and in education available to all, Thomas Jefferson struck a chord for human liberty 200 years ago that resounds through the decades. But in the end, Jefferson's own appraisal of his life, and the one that he wrote for use on his own tombstone, suffices: "Author of the Declaration of Independence, Of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom, And Father of the University of Virginia."
Today, 200 hundred years later is still one of the best Presidents the United States has had.
The Lincoln Memorial is at the opposite end of the National Mall to the Capital Building. It is a commanding white columned building with a huge seated statue of Abraham Lincoln inside. Unfortunately our camera died the day we climbed the stairs and went inside so do not have a picture of him. The first photo is of the theater that he was shot in and the house is across the street where he was taken and later died.
The WWII Memorial is at the opposite end of the Reflecting Pool to the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall. 
The White House, this ended up being the only photo of the White House we have as this is where the camera died. The White House looks out over The Ellipse towards the Washington Monument and the Thomas Jefferson Monument.
The Arlington National Cemetery is across the Potomac River, in Virginia. It is the size of a large town with the white head stones stretching amongst the trees for a far as you can see. It is here that President John F. Kennedy is buried.
The Canadian Embassy is on the corner of 4th and Pennsylvania in a line between the Capital Building and the White House. The building was designed by Vancouver architect Arthur Erickson and the entrance has twelve pillars for the 10 provinces and 2 territories at the time of construction. One of the territories has now split into two. At the entrance there is a huge Bill Reid carving like the one at the Vancouver Airport and is his largest carving.
The Smithsonian Institution Building - The Castle.
National Museum of the American Indian.
The National Museum of Natural History.
In a stair well there are three totem poles, back to back, from the Pacific Northwest Salish People and nearby a stone carving from Easter Island that the Museum has had on display for more than a hundred years.
The United States Botanic Garden.
The National Air and Space Museum.
The aircraft side of the museum moved from the 'First Flight' of the Wright Bros. to WW I aviation, the early passenger and air mail flights in the 1920ies and 1930ies, WW II aircraft and modern passenger and military planes. One would have to spend several days here to do justice to so many wonderful displays.
We saw quite a few groups of people getting around the city on these Segways. A new way of electric propulsion that you stand on.
