D.C. Tourists

At about 6 a.m., Saturday, October 2, we flew from Portland, while the day before, Laurel, David, Matthew, and Maren took the train from Birmingham.   We landed at Reagan about 4 p.m., D.C. time.  The cabbie drove us to a tree-lined street not far from the National Zoo and our B & B: Adam's Inn.

 That evening the six of us walked in the Adams Morgan district.  AOL City Guide claims it is "one of the city's most vibrant neighborhoods.  I believe it.  We ate the first of many fine meals there, this one at an Ethiopian restaurant, Meskerem: a variety of stewed meats and vegetables served on injera, a spongy sourdough flatbread, about 20 inches in diameter, made of fermented teff flour, with more injera to scoop it up.  Yum.

Sunday we caught the "Open Top Sightseeing bus" for a tour of D.C.'s main sights to get a feeling for the city.  The bus speaker regularly cautioned tourists to keep heads down, a necessary warning: as I walked toward Deb and the kids with my back to the front, they excitedly warned me to duck.  I ducked.  Electric wires passed where my head and shoulders had been.  The side streets of D.C. were established in their present form before topless tourist buses were a regular feature: wires barely cleared the top, branches often did not. 

The bus stopped at all expected photo ops.  At Arlington National Cemetery we hiked to memorials and up to the Custis Lee Greek revival mansion, designated only in 1972 "Arlington House, the Robert E. Lee Memorial."

We hiked to the Tomb of the Unknowns, arriving for a changing of the guard which takes place in winter every hour, in summer every half hour.

We hopped back on a topless bus and rode it by more sights that we planned to explore later, ate lunch at Chinatown Garden, where most of the staff watched lottery numbers flash on a monitor.  I had soft-shell crab.  Yum.

In the evening we walked a mile or so in the rain to Lavandou, a French restaurant Laurel had visited on a previous trip.  We celebrated her birthday with an extravagant but scrumptious many-course supper, followed by rich desserts and Martell vsop, then a long hike back to Adam's Inn.

Next morning we rode the Metro--Matthew's favorite ride--to tour the Capitol.  All visitors are screened with airport type security; the guard said I had to throw my two-inch Leatherman Micra pocket tool in the trash.  I stashed it between the bin and the wall and caught up with the others.  Groups of about 30 were ushered through the public areas by guides who provide a constant patter of information, such as: the weight of the dome (some number of tons I now forget) rests on the 36 columns of the rotunda.

We sat through a 13-minute film giving a 4th-grade history of the U.S. government, toured the old Senate chamber, the original Supreme Court chamber, looked at statues and paintings, and eventually found ourselves back where we started, where I fished my Leatherman from behind the trash bin.

From the Capitol we walked toward the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian, which was high on Deb's and my list, but before we got there, the U.S. Botanic Garden captured us.

Inside, we found out of the wind and rain pathways lined with orchids (5,000 specimens, hundreds on display at a time), medicinal plants, succulents, rainforest, enough to keep an aficionado entranced for days.

I got a call from Bike and Ride that our night tour of Mall monuments had been canceled because of the weather, would I like to like to reschedule.  I would, for the following evening.  Clearly they were not Oregon bike riders; on the other hand, after our Chickamauga horseback ride, I did not detect any disappointment in our group.

Next, the American Indian Museum, a new structure rather out of place among the severe architecture of Mall buildings but impressive in its own right.   

We ate lunch at the Mitsitam Native Foods Cafe, which serves "traditional and contemporary" Indian dishes, but not very well if my fry bread was typical: dry and tough.  The displays were fine, but rather spare for a national museum, and most were under glass with glare.

In the rotunda, an Indian musicologist gave a brief talk and demonstration of Indian drumming and song, and answered questions I had from our trip to the Makah 2010 Canoe Journey, for which I was happy.  We planned to return but didn't make it back. That evening, we had lovely paella at El Rincón Español.

Tuesday, we were scheduled to tour the White House at 10:30 a.m., an involved process to get permission that takes three to six months; at 8 a.m., Dave called and got a recording that our tour had been rescheduled for 7 a.m.  The letter he had received detailing how to prepare and what not to bring warned: "If you miss your time for any reason, you will not have the opportunity to reschedule."  Shock and gloom.  Matthew clouded up with disappointment.  Dave called his Senator and explained our predicament to a recording.  We rode the Metro, small consolation for Matthew, to the White House and took the requisite exterior tourist photos, until we reached the South Front (there is no "back door" to the White House, we were told).  There, not a stone's throw away (Laurel gets after me for describing it thus), being interviewed in her garden was Michelle Obama.  To prove our proximity, I took photos, of course.
On our way to the Natural History, I took a detour to the base of the Washington Monument, and tested my time delay on the Leica.

The Natural History is one of the world's great museums:  the world's largest stuffed elephant in the Rotunda; the dinosaur exhibit with the only known specimen of a two-horned Diceratops,

 a delightful T. Rex, a stuffed Bengal tiger leaping over visitors; the attractions are endless.

Deb wanted to see the Hope diamond, currently not in a setting.  To me, it looked like colored glass.

Other crystals were more interesting.

An exhibit of butterflies was free on that day only, so we had to go.  Butterfly exhibits I've visited elsewhere have been more extensive but at this one I managed to reproduce a nice Vermeer.

About 2:30, guards began shooing everyone out, telling us that they were closing (unannounced) for a special program celebrating the museum's centennial.  They herded the tourists through various rooms and exhibits; no one seemed inclined to leave, but eventually.... We wound up at the Elephant & Castle; I had fish and chips and Guinness.  Everyone agreed, the food was good.

We went back to the Old Post Office and took the elevator to the top of the clock tower to get a nice view of the city and the bells.

As dusk fell, we returned to the Old Post Office Pavilion and Bike and Ride to tour Mall monuments, bicycles being nice because the Mall runs two miles from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial and dark promised interesting lighting effects.

We pedaled first to the Jefferson Memorial, then to the Lincoln, with the guide each time providing information and time for us to explore.

As we explored the recently completed WWII Memorial, I thought of Chester.

And as we visited the Korean War and the Viet Nam Memorials, I thought of others now gone.

That evening, Dave got a call from his senator's office that our White House tour had been rescheduled again, for 7 a.m. the following morning, so we made preparations to rise at 5:30 to catch a cab.  The letter outlining procedures included a list of prohibited items, including, "but not limited" to "handbags, book bags, backpacks, PURSES, food and beverages of any kind, STROLLERS, CAMERAS, video recorders or any type of recording device, tobacco products, personal grooming items (make-up, hair brush or comb, lip or hand lotions, etc.), any pointed objects (pens, knitting needles, etc.) aerosol containers, guns, ammunition, fireworks, electric stun guns, mace...."  The list goes on, the caps are theirs.  The letter went on in full caps: "SECRET SERVICE WILL NOT ALLOW YOU ON A TOUR IF YOU BRING ANY OF THESE ITEMS."

We arrived at the Visitor Entrance about 6 a.m. and watched individuals hurry by the guard house without a pause.  About 7, the first 50 or so (we were the very first) were herded through metal detectors, handed a card apologizing, sort of, for being rescheduled, and into some of the public rooms of the White House,

including the East Room, often the site of presidential news briefings, the Green, Blue, and Red rooms, and the State Dining Room.  In each, furniture had been moved and rugs rolled, rubber runners put down to protect the floors.  The guide provided details about furnishings, paintings, wall coverings, and at the end, about 30 minutes later, offered to answer questions.  I asked why cameras were not allowed.  He said, "We do it to keep the group moving, otherwise everyone would try to crowd to the front to get photographs."  Photographs are available on the net, however, and I include one of the Green Room, which looks pretty much like what we saw, including the rolled rug.

We grabbed a cab back to the B & B to gather purses, personal grooming items and such, then headed to the Washington Monument to ride the elevator 500 feet up for another panorama of the area.

Dave and Laurel and grandkids headed for the Air and Space Museum to see, among other things, the Wright brothers' plane; Deb and I caught a cab to the Corcoran to see its collection of American bronzes.  Thirty were displayed in rooms almost empty of visitors; no barriers prevented easy access for close examination.

Remington's Coming Through the Rye had a broken hammer on the left hand rider's revolver (the example at the White House was missing the outside rein of the right hand horse.)



Next, we took in the Freer and its fine collection of Asian art,

and the Sackler, which had a special exhibit of sculpture on loan from the National Museum of Cambodia, 36  examples dating from the third century BCE to the sixteenth century CE.

We wore ourselves out, finally, and took a cab back to the B & B where we discovered that although the kids loved the Air and Space Museum, just as they were approaching the wing with the Wright biplane, guards closed that area.  Disappointment.  Again. Dave said, had the closing been announced ahead of time, they would have gone there first.  That evening, we walked out in the neighborhood, and discovered Slaviya, a restaurant of Eastern European food: Bayganeti, feta and yellow cheese balls breaded and fried; crispy Kalmari, fired squid with chipotle sause; Chevapi, traditional Serbian cured beef rolls; steak Hunter's style, NY strip cooked in mushroom-cream sauce; trout baked in tomato red pepper sauce.  Yum.

Deb and I had planned to go back to museuming, but at breakfast decided instead we would enjoy another day with the kids so in the lovely morning sun we walked with them the three or four blocks to the back entrance of the National Zoo and soon found ourselves among lions and tiger and bears, oh my, and other iconic mega fauna, many of which I photographed, of course, but smaller animals seemed as interesting.

After spending time at most of the exhibits, we reached the front gate about lunchtime.  Down Connecticut we found Lebanese Taverna where we tried the Platter, a selection of traditional hommos with pita, tobouleh (salad of bulgur, chopped parsley, mint, tomato, onion), fatayer b'sbanigh (deep fried triangular pastries of spinach, onion, pine nuts, sumac), kibbeh (small patties of bulgur, chopped mint, onion, ground lamb), and shawarma (in Greece, gyros) washed down with Mango Lassi followed by Turkish coffee.  Yum.

Revived, we thought it a short walk to the National Cathedral, but at least the neighborhoods we hiked were interesting.

Completed only in 1990 after 83 years of construction, the building resembles the many Gothic cathedrals we've toured in Europe, the cruciform floor plan, rose windows, aisles, flying buttresses,

but of special interest to Laurel were gargoyles, especially one high upon the northwest tower.

During construction in the 1980s, a competition was held for children to design gargoyles; Christopher Rader, 13, of Kearney, NB, won third prize with his drawing of this futuristic devil: Darth Vader.  We spent a bit of time searching with binoculars and a telescope, and finally found it almost at the top of the tower on a gablet, located between two louvered arches.

We caught a cab to the "Old Stone House," not far away in Georgetown, completed as a one room stone and oak timbered house in 1765, and added to over the years, now thought to be one of the oldest structures in D.C.

It was privately owned until purchased by the government in 1953 (at the time, it was a used car dealership) and opened to the public in 1960.

Nearby, we found a nice antiques store, but our goal was Zed's, another Ethiopian restaurant, where we enjoyed our last supper in D.C., a scrumptious family meal on injera.

In the morning, while the rest planned more sightseeing until they caught the train, Deb and I caught a cab to Reagan but traffic forced a detour by Arlington, so I had the cabbie detour further to the U.S. Marine Corp War Memorial, which I had wanted to see but fatigue and distance had prevented.

There was still more to see and do, more meals to savor, more time to share with family, but it had been a good trip, good times, good memories.

Simon as Homo neanderthalensis lived between 200,000 and 28,000 years ago in what is now Europe and Asia.  He has a very big nose, which helps survival in cold climates by warming and humidifying cold, dry air.  He buries the dead, uses simple symbols, and may even speak a language.  (Thanks to the David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.)

Deb has been transformed into a Homo floresiensis.  As such, she lived just 95,000  to 17,000 years ago on an island in what is now Southeast Asia.  She is very small...with a brain only about a third the size of modern humans.  She makes tools, controls fire, hunts a variety of animals, and her small size helps survival on an island with limited resources. (Thanks to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.)