From Memphis, I continued east into the Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina.

Fence…what fence?

Absolutely no hidden meaning here at all.

From North Carolina I drove north into Virginia. The next stop was Monticello, home of Thomas Jefferson.

My next stop was Washington D.C. In the background is the US Capitol.

This is the Supreme Court building.

This is the presidential box at Ford's theater, the spot where President Lincoln was assassinated.

Beer break at the Hard Rock Café.

In the background…looking up at the Washington Monument. It’s one of those structures the size of which you really can’t grasp until you’re next to it. When it was completed, it was the tallest building in the world. (It would soon be eclipsed by the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty.)

At the Lincoln Memorial.

At the Jefferson Memorial.

Walking in Washington DC. The Capitol is visible in the background.

Walking along the path towards the Lincoln Memorial.

The steps in front of the Lincoln Memorial where Martin Luther King delivered his "I Have A Dream" speech.

Standing by the Vietnam War Memorial.

When you first enter, it is low and short. There is only room for one row of names.

But as you proceed, you descend, as the wall gets taller. Soon the trickle of names becomes overwhelming, a perfect representation of the war itself.

In the beginning you are cognizant of each name, but as you go on, you are engulfed by the volume of names and it becomes too much to absorb.

There are people with scraps of paper looking for plate such-and- such and line so-and-so. No doubt someone from their hometown who lost a son, husband or father heard that they were visiting DC and the wall, and made a note where they should look to find that familiar name. Overwhelming.

I’m sure there are many different reactions to the monument. But I can’t help but simply think “What a waste.” Which of those young guys might have come back and cured cancer? Which of their sons (or daughters) might have been the first to set foot on Mars? How far would the generational dominoes have fallen? Who can say? And for what?

What a waste.

Bar hopping in the Adams-Morgan neighborhood in Washington DC.