After Christmas, we took our whole family — dog included — on a short trip to Washington, D.C. For my children, it was a chance to learn a little something about this city their father travels to a half dozen times a year, at the least. It was also a chance to freshen up and organize their elementary school learning about American history, and to impress upon them the glory of living in a country like ours. The best architecture and monuments in Washington communicate this clearly, even to young children.

My wife and I still found agreement that the Jefferson Memorial is our favorite spot. Grand, looking out over the Tidal Basin, and decorated with four of Thomas Jefferson’s famous quotations that are in tension with one another, the monument almost sums up the political tensions of the United States ever since — the search for progress while adhering to otherwise timeless, self-evident principles. Our right to make changes, and our desperate attempt not to be shackled by our “barbarous ancestors.”

Even visiting the sites that I don’t think are quite as successful, such as the newer Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, was a chance to at least understand the artist’s vision on his own terms. MLK’s figure emerges as the “stone of hope” from the “mountain of despair” — a reference to one of his most famous speeches. And he stares across the Tidal Basin back at Jefferson, looking with both a critical eye and one focused on those “self-evident principles” as a “promissory note.”

Perhaps one of the best statues in the city is that of Albert Einstein, by Robert Berks, just outside of the National Academy of Sciences. It’s the kind of sculpture that invites children to play within it or on it. We were lucky in getting some of the best possible winter weather. And the kids enjoyed the Air and Space Museum and playing along with the gimmicks that get visitors through the Spy Museum.