The Potomac River

Part 4 of the adventure which began on Sunday, backdated from a few days later.

Once I reached the end of the canal, I hastened across the bridge over the freeway and found myself once again in Foggy Bottom.  Walking southwest I paralleled the river as best I could - I had been doing so since descending Georgetown hill and wanted to see how much longer I could do so - running into the Watergate and the Kennedy Center (which deserves a couple of posts of its own, since I've been short-changing it regularly and I do have things to say about it).  But once I got to the Kennedy Center, I found myself in a tight spot - literally, caught behind an impassable barrier of freeways, unable to continue westwards towards homes.  Frustrated, I went around the center and saw the river, and a path running along it, separated by a four land road with a narrow, grassy median.  Reliving Frogger, I crossed, and found myself face to face, for the first time all day, with the Potomac River.

It ain't pretty.  Many of the waterways we think of as beautiful - Paris's Seine, the Arno in Florence, or the Grand Canal of Venice - are those which are well integrated into their cities.  In Washington, the Potomac is an obstacle, to be bridged as many times as possible so people can cross over into Virginia twice daily during their commutes.  The riverbank is put to use as a place for a parkway (the fate which would have awaited the site of the canal I had just visited, had it not been set aside as a park), nestled within an impenetrable (to a pedestrian) web of freeways, interchanges, and overpasses.  All of this I can understand, since Washington has only gotten busier as time progresses, but one thing I cannot understand or even excuse.

This:
Before you dismiss the images in the mud as driftwood, you might want to blow this picture up.  I count thirteen tires, three buckets, what appears to be a plastic jug of some sort (the yellow thing), and a traffic cone.  There are other objects in this picture - and in the river mud - that I simply can't account for.  But I would also like to draw your attention to the upper left of the picture.  See that balustrade?  Here, look again:

It's a rather fancy affair, what with it's smooth surface, pillars, decorative motifs, and so on.  It is in fact a promenade, designed so that pedestrians can walk along the river.  And look at Washington's very own dump, within sight of the National Mall.

Follow the promenade to the bridge in the background - dodging cars if ever you should try to cross, since there are no traffic lights - and you will eventually arrive at the back side of the Lincoln Memorial.  Guarding the bridge are these scupltures:

They are as shiny and beautiful (if this style is your thing, and I'm not confident it's mine) as the river bed is ugly.  They are gold within spitting distance of grime and white stone pedestals grayed and pitted by car exhaust, cousin to the delicious chemical cocktail leaching from those tires and plastic products into the river.  I will spare you the environmentalist's rant, but suffice it to say that this is another one of those moments - just like the homeless men in DuPont Circle - when I begin to see the ways in which the capital can serve as a microcosm for the entire country.  And I don't like it.

However, some good did come of this part of my journey, for I passed the Lincoln Memorial, and I have at last found Wisconsin's allocated place.  It is on the southern side, which is only visible from a rather inconvenient spot.  And, thanks to river, I was in that spot, and able to snap this picture:

So there.  Some good comes of trailing along an ugly river anyhow!

[Just a note - tonight my boyfriend gets into town for his long-awaited visit, so posts may be a bit sporadic while he's here, since I want to take advantage of our sadly-limited time together.  I will make it up to you, though, promise!]