Moonlight Monuments

The hiking meetup group holds a few other cool events throughout the year: Halloween corn maze, a summer picnic, and when the full moon is on the weekend, a Moonlight Monument Hike.

My friend Alyssa is a new DC-area resident, so I invited her to attend this. I thought it would be fun and inexpensive. We met the group at 5 pm between the White House and Washington Monument, along the Mall side of Constitution Ave. It was already dark so after splitting into 3 groups of varying size, the hike leaders handed out glow-in-the-dark necklaces and we set out. We went with the "fast" group of about 40 people, while the "medium" and "slow" groups, each about the same size as ours, trailed behind.

First up was a short walk to the Washington Monument.

Washington monument
Originally uploaded by klbarrus

We took a few pictures and before long, our group leader was rounding us up for the walk to Jefferson. We left early and walked fast, in order to put some space between our group and the other groups.

Jefferson memorial
Originally uploaded by klbarrus

We had a little time to walk around the rotunda before we gathered up and headed to the Roosevelt monument. That one has a nice waterfall area, but my pictures didn't turn out too well. We headed on to the Korean monument and the Lincoln memorial.

Lincoln memorial
Originally uploaded by klbarrus

The Lincoln memorial was very well lit, and despite the number of other people out visiting, it wasn't too hard to get a nice pic, because of the amount of space available. Alyssa set the timer on her camera and we were able to get a pic of us in front of the Reflecting Pool, with the Washington monument in the distance.

Reflecting Pool
Originally uploaded by klbarrus

From there we walked the short distance to the Vietnam memorial, and then went to the World War 2 memorial.

World War 2 memorial
Originally uploaded by klbarrus

And that was the end, other than getting back to the Washington Monument. Overall it was a fun tour, and one that anybody can do on their own. It was quite nice at night, everything is lit up and it isn't crowded at all.