A couple of days in Washington

Dee and I drove to Washington, D.C., last weekend to be on the Mall for the second inauguration of Barack Obama. We went four years ago and were part of the crowd of two million (more or less) facing the Capitol on a very cold day.
This year we again stayed with potter friend Lorraine Colson in Alexandria and rode the Metro into the city to be there when the swearing-in happened. I remain amazed that this country elected an African-American man twice as president. Politics and individual issues aside, that fact alone is a measure of how far we've come in my 65 years of life. We're clearly not perfect ... never will be, in fact. But it seemed to us that the day was worth celebrating. And there were about 1 million spectators who felt the same. Many of them were also African-American, men and women much older than us, young couples with very young children, there to show their kids and to be able to say they were there. It was pretty cool, in spite of the malfunctioning Jumbotron at our standing spot near the Washington Monument.
Many thanks to Lorraine, who cooked great meals for us, helped consume more than a few bottles of Prosecco and Cava, talked pottery and potters, tolerated a losing Patriots' game and generally was her usual gracious hostess.

(Oh, and we ate a great lunch Sunday near the Museum of the American Indian, prepared in a truck by someone who calls himself, immodestly, "The King of Lebanese Cuisine.")

Photos: Abe Lincoln, always our favorite monument; two British visitors meeting Abe's memorial; in the crowd Monday; a Japanese Buddhist temple Daiko drum group at the American Indian museum; a West African dancer, at the same museum.