Phil Konstantin's 2004 Vacation Through Washington, D.C. - Page 1

Page 2004 - A1

All small pictures

About My Books

Below is a picture of the cover of my first book
"This Day in North American Indian History"
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This is the cover to my first book. 
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Below is a picture of the cover of my second book
"Native American History For Dummies"
I wrote 6 of the 24 chapters for this book.
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This is the cover to my 2nd book. 
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Below is a picture of the cover of my third book
"Treaties With American Indians"
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This is the cover to my 3rd book. 
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I flew from San Diego to the Baltimore/Washington, D.C. International airport on September 15th, 2004. The grand opening of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) was scheduled for September 21st. The NMAI is billed as the last major museum to be built on the Mall in D.C. As a Cherokee and an author/historian, I was very interested in the museum. I had never been to Washington before, so this seemed to be the perfect time for a visit. I flew home on the 22nd.

I visited almost all of the museums on "The Mall" in D.C. I also saw many of the monuments, memorials and other historical features of the area during my week there. Prior to leaving home, I rebroke one of my toes. This and some blisters which formed on both feature, left my feet very sore. Considering that I walked over 20 miles during this one week visit, my feet were very tired by the end of my trip. I stayed in the Foggy Botton area. My hotel was located in the middle of George Washington University's fraternity/sorority row. The hotel looked like something out of the movie Animal House. It was old and run down. Thus, it was one of the cheapest places to stay near the Mall. This did not bother me. I have often joked that Motel 6 is too fancy for me. The hotel was two blocked from the Kennedy Center, and about five or six blockes from both the Lincoln Memorial and the White House. It was also just a couple of blocks from the Metro subway system. I used this excellent transportation system quite often.

During past trips, I often felt that I was taking lots of pictures. Then, when I got home, I thought I had not taken enough. This time I made a point of taking many pictures. In fact, I took over 1,300 pictures with my Sony Mavica-91 digital camera. The camera has seen lots of wear having gone through several trips through the U.S., and literally through the jungles of Central America twice. The autofocus has now started to perform less well than when the camera was new. Many museums in D.C. feature low lighting in order to preserve fragile, or old material. Some of these digital photos had to be manipulated by software in order for them to be seen. With flash photography being against the rules, I relied upon this post-vacation manipulation to make these photos presentable, at least. I had mixed results doing this. Taking photos out of a commercial airliners window has always been difficult, at best.

I have posted an index at the bottom of each page. You can click any of these lines in order to go to a page which interests you.

And so, here we go...


The photos above show the 'marine layer' (coastal fog) coming up against the 6,000 high Laguna Mountains in San Diego County.



This is the Pine Valley bridge on I-8 in San Diego County.




Above is the Mt. Laguna observatory in San Diego County.


More of the Laguna Mountains. The Anza Borrego desert starts on the east slope.


It is a bit hard to see, but this is the Salton Sea.


Above is the start of the Glamis sand dunes in Imperial County, California.

Above is a close-up of an extinct volcanic cone in Imperial County.






Above is the Colorado River. The top of the picture is Arizona, the botton is California.



Arizona



This is a large balloon anchored by a very long cable.


Another plane flys by in western Arizona

A powerplant west of Phoenix.

Suburbs


This is an aerial view of Lake Pleasant, which is just northwest of Phoenix.


The Mogollon Rim


A small forest fire





Meteor Crater southeast of Flagstaff, Arizona




Little Colorado River

Winslow, Arizona




Six pictures of the Canyon de Chelley on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona.



New Mexico



This is Shiprock in New Mexico






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