On weekends, the National Park Service provides a free 3 hour guided bike ride around the monument area of Washington DC. Today was a beautiful day high 80s, a few clouds and low humidity, so we packed the bikes into our vehicles and headed off to Gravelly Park (see later post). We then rode into DC across the Potomac (so cool to cross a state/district line on our bikes), and got to the Jefferson Memorial where the tour started.
Today's tour was all about pop culture. We learnt about concerts and riots in the Mall, some myths, and also some major gaffes in movies set around DC (even Oliver Stone made some major physical mistakes about DC in JFK). We heard a lot about PT Barnum, Houdini and the King (Elvis of course), as well as the odd President.
You will notice a change in colour of the Washington Monument about a third of the way up. The general story is that they ran out of money and when they finally got back to finishing it, they had to use a different quarry for the marble in Maryland. But the real story is that after it was hit by a flying saucer (and we saw a real photo), they had to rebuild it almost overnight in the 50s before anyone noticed. They then manufactured the historical version!
The Kids kept up really well, especially Gemma on her single gear bike. She was a real trooper.
