D.C. — The Tourist’s View

While my kids ran a half marathon, I walked around the nation's capital with a camera

The above photo is not a sign of Armageddon, but a beautiful sunrise from a couple of weeks ago.

Even though we live only a few miles from our nation’s capital, it’s rare that I’m in Washington, D.C., at dawn. The reason for this particular jaunt? I provided “tech support” for my youngest daughter and oldest son who were running a half marathon, which primarily meant driving them into the District at zero dark thirty.

It was Emma’s first half marathon, something she has been training for since doing a 10-mile run in Chapel Hill earlier this year, and Nick was kind to come from Durham to join her. My wife Jill and son Ben planned to join us at the end of the race, which meant I had a couple of hours to kill, so I put on my tourist hat and took out my camera.

We have lived in Northern Virginia for more than two decades, and yet I find myself in awe every time I see the various D.C. monuments and memorials. Here are some of the photos from that morning.

A quote at the Martin Luther King Memorial

Thomas Jefferson Memorial

National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Washington Monument

Another view of the sunrise

A person walking near the reflecting pool

World War II Memorial

Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial

Union Station, where we had breakfast after the race and dropped off Ben so he could catch a train back to New York City.

And of course, I had to get photos of the runners as well.

To see more photos from the morning, go to my Facebook album here. You do not have to be on Facebook to see the photos.

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In Case You Missed It…

“The Present” Update: Thirty-five years ago, I met Cecile Holmes during her first week at the Houston Chronicle. I was an intern on the features desk, and within a few minutes, felt like I had made a lifelong friend. That was because of her personality. She never met a stranger, a trait we shared in common.

I left the Chronicle a few months later, but the friendship endured for more than three decades. We worked together on occasion, most notably on a seven-month project during the 50th anniversary year of Brown v. Board of Education.

The magazine I was with focused on K-12 education, and Cecile was a journalism professor at the University of South Carolina. With Cecile’s students, we reported together on education and life in Summerton, S.C., where the first of the five cases that led to Brown was filed.

That period is one of my most cherished professional memories because it required all who worked on the project to look at a landmark historic event through the lenses of social justice, religion, education, and history. It also gave me a chance to spend extended time with one of my dearest friends and Jace, her beloved husband who died five years later.

After her most recent medical setback, I drove from Alexandria, Va., to Columbia, S.C., to visit Cecile. She was weak and in bed, so the conversations that once lasted hours were now mere soundbites, but her memory and curiosity was intact.

Three days after I left, she died, and I’m forever grateful I made the trip. She will be missed.

The essay I wrote about the visit is here:

The Present