Last Day in D.C.

On our last day, we had too many things left to do and not enough time to do them all! We never did get to the Air and Space Museum or the Natural History Museum, two of the most popular Smithsonian museums, and that was my only disappointment of the week.

But we couldn't NOT go to Mt. Vernon!

We'd been waiting for a "for sure" good weather day, and we surely got one. 

They used six different types of split rail fences on the Mt. Vernon estate.  Some were more temporary and easily moved than others, and they used those to rotate where animals were pastured, so their waste would fertilize different parts of a field.  George was an early proponent of crop rotation, too; he was quite an ambitious as well as an educated farmer, believing that the newly-formed U.S. should lead the world in crop production.

We spent about 4 hours on the estate and in the museum, and some of us could have stayed longer.  The Donald W. Reynolds Museum & Education Center was a new-to-us and surprisingly excellent addition to the Mt. Vernon experience that we didn't really allow enough time for; we were especially impressed with the quality of the films!  The most spectacular was the one about Valley Forge, during which snow falls from the ceiling and smoke issues from cannons, but our favorite was "We Fight to Be Free" about Washington's courage and military instincts during the French & Indian War.  The Museum's mission is to overcome Washington's image as the most boring of the Founding Fathers, when many historians believe that without him, there would be no United States (see this article).  We certainly came away with a new appreciation for G.W.!

Next stop, as long as we were on the east side of the Potomac River, was Arlington National Cemetery.

We were blessed to have been given a pass by someone who has relatives buried there, so we were able to drive around in the cemetery, instead of walking or paying for a bus tour.

Of course the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns was a highlight for us all. The absolute silence and the extreme ceremony of the ritual made me think of my post on solempne as C.S. Lewis describes it--a solemnity that is also celebratory.  The modern-day example that comes to mind is a wedding, but here is another example.  Would this ceremony be as moving if the guards were dressed in everyday clothing or performed their ritual in a casual way? ( Lewis argues for solempne in church, which has been lost in so many church settings.)

It was after 5, then, too late for the Smithsonian Museums I mentioned above, but the National Portrait Gallery was open later.  A friend had recommended it to me, we had 90 minutes until our Washington Monument tour time, and there was a parking garage close by, so we could just fit it in.  Our favorite part was a special exhibition of Norman Rockwell photos, preliminary drawings based on the photos, and final paintings and magazine covers.  Since every painting tells a story, and there is usually a character in each painting that appeals to children, it was fun to see with kids!

And of course going to the top of the Washington Monument was a highlight for us all, and a great way to end our DC trip!  Here I am pointing out all the places we had been throughout the week to Chicklet7 and B5.  I wonder how much of this trip they will remember?

And here we are waiting on Papa Rooster and B15 to take a few last pictures.  These were such comfortable benches!



Chicklet7 is telling me how she feels older and more grown-up since she has been to Washington, D.C.  Travel broadens the mind, they say; it was interesting that she was aware of it!

We got back to our campsite about 8:30, changed into our swimsuits, had pizza delivered to the pool, and all 8 of us swam until it closed at 10:00.

What better ending to our trip?

Days Three & Four

Wednesday was our down day. Though they were enjoying our nation's capital as much as the rest of us, the younger three were chafing to try out the two pools at our campground, Cherry Hill Park, in College Park, MD (which we wholeheartedly recommend; we've never encountered a more helpful staff.)

So the kids and I spent the morning at the pools, took showers, and prepared a late lunch, while Papa Rooster ran some errands, including taking the van in for an oil change and pulling advice.  (He was worried about getting back over those mountains!)

So what with one thing and another, we got off very late on our 1.5 hour drive to Gettysburg. We arrived after 4:00, too late to hire a guide to drive around with us, as I'd heard you could do quite affordably, so we bought the CD version of the tour in the gift store and set out.  It soon became apparent which family members were history buffs and which were not!

Bantam5 and Chicklet7 were thrilled just to get out and run around and climb on rocks, cannon and split rail fences.  Here's B5 atop Little Round Top, with his head tipped toward Devil's Den (click to enlarge).  Both were scenes of some of the fiercest fighting on Day Two of the battle.

Yup, some of us were really into it...and some of us weren't.  When twilight began to fall, we had to fold our maps, give up completing the grand tour and give in to the call of dinner, before the long drive back to our campsite.

Thursday morning looked grey and threatening, so we revised our plans to visit Mt. Vernon and looked at our indoor options.  Our first stop was at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to see if they had any tickets left.  They did, but not till 5:30 p.m.  So we decided to leave the downtown area for the morning and end up back there in the afternoon.

Our next stop was at the National Cathedral, the sixth-largest cathedral in the world.  It was built in the traditional Gothic way, stone upon stone, with no steel girders or supports, and it took 100 years to build.

It's very beautiful, but spiritually, it didn't feel very alive.  Perhaps that's because people of all faiths, not just the Christian one, are welcome to worship here. And for me, a big reason was because everywhere you looked, you saw the names of men (and a few women).  There were plaques or inscriptions everywhere, "in memory of" or "in honor of" those who had given money for the building project. There was a statue of George Washington, and one of Lincoln.

B11 was born on Lincoln's birthday, so he was lovin' the photo ops!

There was also a Darth Vader gargoyle on the outside of the church (check it out here).  It just contributed to my feeling that as a church, you couldn't take this place seriously.

In sharp contrast was our next stop, at the the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, or National Shrine for short.  It's the largest church building in North America and the 8th largest religious structure in the world, a Catholic church in a Neo-Byzantine style.

It really drew you up and out.


That's Christ the Judge, in the red robe at the front.

Our Catholic friend (and occasional commentor) Matt, who works nearby, gave us a tour.

 
And not a man's name carved anywhere in the  main sanctuary!  (Donors' names were inscribed on pillars in the basement--more appropriately, I thought.) Scripture verses captioned the mosaics instead, which were much more worshipful ("Send forth your Spirit and renew the face of the earth.") For a church dedicated to Mary--and there were many smaller chapels along the sides dedicated to various appearances and ethnic incarnations of Mary--I was surprised at how much the focus was on Christ, in the main sanctuary and its mosaics.

Here's a close-up of the Christ at the front of the church.

It's remarkable for His sternness.  But it's a beautiful and sobering reminder that He will one day judge us all.

There was another Revelation image that our kids especially loved:


It's the seven-headed dragon! The one who pursues the pregnant woman (on the right), and when she gives birth, he tries to devour her child.  But the baby is snatched up to heaven (by angels, directly above the dragon).

After a late lunch with Matt, we headed back downtown, planning to park and walk to the National Air & Space Museum.  But then the rain broke loose, pouring down and blowing sideways so that even under an umbrella, you'd get soaked.  There was no other museum that we could park near and still have time to walk to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing by 5:15, so we ended up just waiting in the van and going early for our tour time.

No pictures allowed, but it was a fun tour!  The guide explained the whole process--did you know our "paper" money is actually made of cloth, a linen-cotton blend?--and emphasized how the Bureau stays one step ahead of counterfeiters by changing designs and security features frequently.

Then we drove back out to the 'burbs meet up with Papa Rooster's aunt (in her 80's) and cousin, whom he had not seen since they were kids.  She took us out to dinner and then invited us back to her townhome.  It was fun to get to know them both.  And it was a nice ending to a couple of full days!

Day Two in D.C.

On our second day, we started out at the Smithsonian Museum of American History. After enjoying the movie Julie & Julia,this was a highlight for Papa Rooster and me:

It's Julia Child's actual kitchen, which she donated along with all her pots, pans and kitchen implements. (There is a video of her explaining the uses for some of them, including one that "is such a pretty little thing.  I"ve kept it all these years because it's so charming, but I have no idea what it's for.")  The clear plastic wall we are looking through was a regular wall in her home--and it's right behind you, at the museum, with all the skillets and pans hanging on it (behind glass, of course).

Other highlights included the badly tattered flag that inspired the writing of "The Star-Spangled Banner," the collection of dresses worn by First Ladies to Inaugural Balls (I loved Nancy Reagan's one-shoulder sheath), Kermit the Frog, Dorothy's ruby slippers, a phaser from Star Trek, the C3PO costume from  Star Wars, a flying Dumbo car from Disneyland that perhaps I rode in when I was five years old, and so much other wonderful Americana that we ran out of time!

We had timed tickets for the National Archives, so we walked a block or two and after an introductory film and a then a bit of a wait, we were allowed to view the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Magna Carta and other documents of importance.  It was pretty cool to see the famous signatures--G Washington, B Franklin, John Adams, and of course John Hancock--but overall, this visit took more time than I expected, for just a few minutes of high interest.  Personally, I really enjoyed the introductory film, though--it told stories of three people who had used the Archives to research and tell stories of relatives or events in history, which renewed an old desire in me to do the same.  Maybe in another lifetime!

After the dimly-lit Charters of Freedom Rotunda (preserving the documents), the National Gallery of Art's sunny Sculpture Garden, across the street, was an appealing place to relax for a bit, especially on a hot day!

To the teenage boys' disgust, the plans for a late lunch included only granola bars from Mom's string backpack, soft pretzels from a street vendor, and promises of an early dinner after a short hour in the National Gallery of Art, which closes at 5.

The Gallery was full of beautiful and familiar works of art, and we followed a self-guided tour ("If You Only Have an Hour") locating its rare and most-prized possessions.  The only Leonardo da Vinci in the western hemisphere is at the Gallery, which is a beautiful building in its own right.

I really like this close-up that B15 took of the statue's face (it's Mercury or Hermes, the messenger).

None too soon for the teens, the museum closed and we walked to a street with plenty of restaurants, including a Potbelly's, where we refueled, rested and regrouped.  This was to be our late night in D.C., so we could see the monuments on the Mall by twilight, when they are all lit up.

Our first stop was the World War 2 Memorial, the newest one, added in 2004.

Next we viewed the sobering Wall of Names at the Vietnam Memorial.  Here the kids and I are looking at a rubbing that we made of a soldier's name.

The Korean War Memorial was the most haunting.  

We talked awhile with a man whose father served in "the Forgotten War," and he told me that each statue is based on an actual man's face.  I assumed the ponchos they are wearing was because the war was fought in a rainy jungle area, but he said that it was actually mountainous and freezing.  This inscription was also moving: "Our nation honors her sons and daughters who answered the call to defend a country they never knew and a people they never met."

But the highlight for our family--and for many others--was the Lincoln Memorial.

It's powerful.  It's sobering, and it's moving, and we didn't want to leave.  It was especially great at night, I thought--more impacting than my memories of it from our 7th grade trip, although even by day it was a stand-out experience.  I was particularly moved by reading his Second Inaugural Address, which is engraved in the north wall.  It is well-known for its ending:  "With malice toward none, with charity for all...."  But I was surprised by the middle part, in which his sorrow over the war is so evident, and he states his belief that the war might be God's judgment on our country for its years of enslavement and mistreatment of blacks.  His Christian beliefs and sensibilities are so evident in it.  It's worth reading, if you haven't lately. 

And across the Mall, we saw the Washington Monument--which we would be touring on our last night!

Day One--At the Capitol & Ford's Theater/Peterson House

It was quite a feat to narrow down the many hundreds of pictures we took on vacation! Papa Rooster has been teaching himself professional-level photography for the last couple years, and he had a field day in D.C. He also gave his next-best camera to B15 and started training him to use it; Blondechick was assigned to take the people shots. So it's been hard to choose just a few!


Let's start with our first morning there.  We had a tour of the Capitol building lined up in advance, with an intern from our Congressman's office.  Congress wasn't in session, so he wasn't there, and we didn't even get a peek at the Congressional chambers since they were closed for a few hours at the time we were there.  But nothing else about the Capitol was disappointing!  The kids all name it as a highlight.

The Rotunda is probably the most impressive room.  So many beautiful details!  This frieze had an interesting story.  Congress wanted a bas-relief sculpture, but to save money (what a concept!;), they had it painted to look like sculptural instead.  The first artist quit after falling off the scaffolding; the second artist was too slow and detailed, and he made his figures too close together and ran out of the planned material, so there was a big space at the end for many years.  Then a third artist proposed and executed the remainder.  You can't tell the difference, from the ground, anyway.

Here is B15's photo of Papa Rooster getting a shot of Statuary Hall (also a famous example of a whispering gallery).  Every state of the union has donated two statues to the Capitol's collection, and many of them are displayed in this room.  I especially like this shot because it's of parallel priests.

We all think this one looks like a postcard.  The partly cloudy day was perfect lighting!

We ate lunch at the Capitol cafeteria, and then had a fast, longish walk to make our appointment time at Ford's Theater, where Lincoln was assassinated.  The kids were happy to sit awhile and watch an educational movie when we first got there.

It was fun to banter with Lincoln's life-size contemporaries!

And there's the box where he was watching the play on that fateful night.  We sat in the balcony for awhile ourselves, while a National Park Ranger gave a detailed account of the days surrounding the tragedy.  Then we trooped across the street to view the room in the Peterson House where he died the next morning.  Interestingly, the furnishings there were reproductions; the actual furniture from the room was back home in a Chicago museum I've never heard of before (the Chicago History Museum).

We had a dinner invitation from some college friends in the area--and we had a great time reconnecting with their family!--so we had to call it a day in D.C.  And I think I'll call it a day with this post, too.  More to come!