The Price of Freedom

I've always wanted to photograph a detail of this star-covered wall, within Washington's World War II memorial.

It's called the Freedom Wall (yes, I took my notebook this time...). It holds 4,048 gold stars, each star representing 100 American service personnel who died or remain missing from that war. The 405,399 dead or missing are second only to the loss of 620,000 Americans during the Civil War.

On the weather front, we hit 103 today; with the humidity factored in, that means it felt like 110!! I felt bad for the tourists out there....

ps: Thanks to all who wished me a happy blip anniversary yesterday! :)