I’m not really a “picture person”.

But I did take some pictures of my DC trip!

First, Mario and I had to figure out the metro system. Also pictured: six or seven days of stubble. There are toddler girls with more impressive facial hair than I’m capable of.

I’ve seen lots of pictures of the Washington Monument, but never one from the base looking up… so I decided to take one. I had to about break my neck to crane back far enough to snap off the shot.

I always thought this monument looked really impressive, especially those ultra-iconic shots of it with the reflecting pool in the foreground. The longer I spent in DC, though, the sillier the monument seemed to look. It’s like, you’ll walk out of a Subway or Johnny Rocket’s or whatever and — oh, look. There’s the monument, in between that dead tree and that ugly graffiti’d scaffolding. And in the foreground, instead of the majestic reflecting pool, is some joker peddling tie-dyed “I <3 DC” shirts. Or a dude sleeping on a bench. Something about removing the mystique from the equation made the monument look really ridiculous. Like, what is the point of it? You know?

It didn’t help that my cousin’s girlfriend kept referring to it as “the penis”.

We found this little guy quite by accident while exploring the WW2 Memorial. We were getting a picture of my brother standing by the Pennsylvania pillar, see. He’s in his mid-twenties, and looks identical to my grandfather (who served in WW2, and was originally from Pennsylvania) when he was in his mid-twenties, so it was a good photo op. After the picture Bro looked off to his left, into a cluttered little corner of the monument, and said “…what’s that?”

There was a brief and heated discussion about whether or not it was graffiti. Standing about eight feet away with the sun going down it looked like someone had drawn it on with Sharpie. But no, it’s carved in, and is an intentional part of the monument. Kilroy was something of an inside joke between servicemen overseas, and therefore is an inside joke here on the monument.

So remember: Kilroy is here, tucked away in a corner next to the Pennsylvania pillar of the WW2 memorial.

Day 2 was all about museums, and Peanut and I spent more time in the Air and Space Museum than anywhere else. I was particularly intrigued by this placard detailing the first commercial airliner in the US: a one-passenger shuttle that took you across Tampa Bay. A thirty minute flight in a rickety aircraft that can’t carry any luggage? Sign me the hell up! Of course the alternative was an eleven hour train ride, as depicted on the map. And here I flip my shit if it takes me twenty minutes to drive across the Bay.

This is the only thing Peanut cared about seeing in our nation’s great capitol. I don’t know why she chose to photograph them from an angle that prominently shows the corner of the glass display case. Anyway they weren’t that impressive. Sorta dingy, you know? Pretty much what you’d expect sixty-year-old movie props to look like.

I’ve got lots of other pictures but they’re mostly filled with boring family members etc.