No, I haven't quit blogging. Reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated, although the same can't be said for Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon, Michael Jackson, Billy Mays and the gubernatorial career of Sarah Palin.
See what happens when I go away?
For the last week, the family and I had been in Washington DC, as Facebook friends, Twitter followers or anyone who checks my Flickr photostream are already aware. We had some adventures.
Full of great things to see, rich in history and beautiful.
As we were leaving through the tunnel to the Library of Congress, an evacuation of the Capitol Visitor's Center began and they closed all the exits and sent people through the LOC tunnel, toward us. We hurried across.
We were shown around by a very personable young congressional page from Worcester who is studying government at Harvard. I wish her well in her senior year.
We sang "I'm Just a Bill" (what we could remember of it) on some steps on the actual Capitol Hill. We were at the Cannon Building; the actual steps where the Bill in the cartoon sings were roped off.
I looked for the velvet rope where they make the "bills that didn't make it that far' stand. Didn't see it.
Notice how the cartoon skips the role of lobbyists, conference committees and the vote that takes place after a conference committee? This explains my confusion the first time I heard about conference committees.
He generously bought us lunch and kept the kids laughing into the afternoon. it was a great time.
He drove us out to the Zoo, where I got to see one of my favorite animals, the red panda.
Seeing the Smithsonian Museums
We saw all our favorites and got to spend plenty of time on them
I learned that rocks contain water
We saw both classical and modern art, and I thoroughly enjoyed both. Especially the Magritte, Rodin, Mueck, and Vermeer.
i felt like I wanted to say something about what I was looking at, but the need to move on prevented me from thinking too deeply about what i was seeing. I think you have to sit for long periods of time with a notebook to form your thoughts properly. of course, i can say some superficial things. I could go with the very Spock-like "fascinating."
We spent most of our time at:
National Museum of American History
National Air and Space Museum
National Gallery of Art East and West buildings
Hishhorn Museum
National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden
We walked miles and miles.
On the first day alone we walked over 4 miles. Here was the bulk of that walk, not counting walking back and forth and around.
Walking allowed us to avoid gaining crazy amounts of weight, despite lots of high-calorie eating. Walking all day makes you hungry. Very hungry.
We learned a lot about the metro system in DC
Very clean compared to the Boston T
Cheap, and especially convenient for commuters.
Tough to figure out at first for newcomers because there are at least a couple of different types of busses which have different rules, and they don't use an "Inbound/Outbound" system like Boston. You have to know where the end of your line is to know which train to get on, even if you're not going to the end. Doesn't take too long to figure out, but if you're only there for a couple of days, you'll be looking at the maps a lot.
If you have any questions about getting around DC on public transit, I'm pretty sure I can answer them, now. :)
Had my first "Five Guys" burger and fries. In Georgetown, not in the place that Obama gets his. Sure, I could have done this in Dartmouth, but I'm hardly in Dartmouth anymore.
There are steel cables that run vertically through the openings in the tower, making photography difficult, and the guard prohibits approaching the cables too closely. But it's still a great experience.
The DC Ducks duck boat tour of the city
Loads of fun.
What I'd like to see if we return to DC
Fisherman's Wharf
Holocaust Museum
WWII Memorial
American Indian Museum
Postal Museum
Newseum
There is just not enough time in 6 days to thoroughly explore the city, especially when you have 4 people. We weighted our trip heavily to the children's interests, which overlapped heavily with our own.
We actually went to the Natural History Museum twice, but somehow it is omitted in the list of museums. An oversight, I'm sure, as that's where we learned that rocks contain water. I must plug the HMNH/Peabody here -- I like it much, much better. The HMNH has the feeling of a musty old collection from some 1800's Adventurer's private collection (HUGE private collection). The Smithsonian version was much too slick and kid-friendly for me. I'd almost say I like the Roger Williams museum of natural history better too, but its collection is so tiny, that wouldn't be fair. But in that museum they actually have recreated collection rooms from the 19th century that you can look at. Hey, that's when the stuff was collected, that's how I want it displayed. :-P
I was surprised that I enjoyed the Air&Space so much. I loved walking through Skylab, after hearing about it through my childhood.
(See, babbled on your blog post, saved myself a blog post.)
Honestly, it was good but not better than Johnny Rockets.
My favorite burger place is Ugly American in Fall River. That's where I'd take the president if he were to swing through the SouthCoast. Hopefully, he'd hang out for a pint or two afterward at the Pour Farm.
