Washington D.C.

  For several decades, we have made periodic trips to our nartion's capital, visiting the monuments, Smithsonian museums, Arlington National Cemetery, even the White House. During all of those visits, we never made it to the National Cathedral. This oversight became a bucket-list priority for our current visit. Our daughter, Madonna, and her husband, Josh, spent the better part of two days with us, which included completing this bucket-list item (and we really enjoyed their company). What a glorious building!

  Officially known as "The Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in the city and diocese of Washington", it is the sixth-largest cathedral in the world and the second-largest in America. While construction began in 1907, it took 83 years to complete the process. "Completion" is not really the proper term to use. Architects for the cathedral deliberately left parts of the exterior and interior decorations blank so that future generations could add their own signatures to the building. In August of 2011, the cathedral sustained 34 million dollars worth of damage from the Virginia Earthquake. Repairs are ongoing.

  There is just so much to see within the cathedral, that we decided to return for a second visit. This proved to be a great decision on our part. We met Chris Garten, director of the cathedral's gift shop and a part-time historian of the building. Chris spent an hour-and-a-half giving us a personal tour of the edifice, and showing us many of its little known secrets. We greatly appreciated his time spent with us, and thank him for this wonderful experience.

The Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.

The central aisle looking towards the high altar.

The Jerusalem high altar. The creators of this sculpture did not have enough limestone to complete the work, so they had to import limestone from Texas to create the central oval.

There are many, many exquisite stained glass windows throughout the cathedral. This is the west rose window over the main entrance.

The Canterbury pulpit was carved from stone taken from the 16th century Bell Harry Tower of Canterbury Cathedral. It depicts the history of the English translations of the Bible.

The Pentagon Cross was donated by the U.S. Army Chief of Chaplains from fragments of the damage done to the Pentagon on 2001.

In the Lincoln Bay is this "Penny Floor" depicting the 34 states that made up the United States when Lincoln was president. The 13 pennies in the outer ring represent the original colonies. In the interior star. The center piece, which was placed upside down, represents South Carolina, the first state to secede in the Civil War.

The Saint Mary's Chapel was donated by Larz and Isabella Anderson (our Boston friends will recognize their names from the park named after them).

Following medieval custom, donors' images are carved into the sculpture. This is Larz Anderson on the left side of the altar....

...and his wife, Isabella on the right side.

The "Last Judgement" rose window.

The South Rose Window.

Chris Garten, director of the Gift Shop, showing us around the cathedral. He is standing in front of St. Joseph's Chapel.

In 2008, a competition was held for designing some of the exterior decorations. This Darth Vadar Grotesgue sculpture was the third place winner and is located on the northwest tower.

An overhead view of the Bishop's garden as seen from the seventh floor observatory.

This Space stained glass window depicts our exploration of space. A sliver of moon rock donated by Appollo astronauts is imbedded in the window.

Sculpture of Martin Luther King in one of the entrance naves. King made his final sermon in the National Cathedral just days before his assassination.

There is also a sculpture dedicated to Mother Theresa...

...and Rosa Parks.