Dear Family, Friends, and Diary,
We started north early-ish on Friday with Washington DC as our destination. We had plenty of time for the estimated four-hour drive, and the drive was really quite pleasant. It is almost all divided highways now, unlike when I drove this route ten to twenty years ago, but real city freeways only start near The Capital.
For a mid-way break, we stopped in Culpeper, Virginia, filled up with gas, grabbed a bite to eat, and even worked in a history museum visit. There we learned a little about the small town, from "Don't Tread On Me" flags of the 19th Century to a history of lynchings in the 20th. ( I expect it took until the 21st Century before anyone could talk about such local history.)
Eventually, we hit the big city traffic. The GPS kept us off toll roads, so I think the drive was slower than it had to be, but we were in no hurry. As we crossed the Potomac, we got our first glimpse of famous buildings.
From the bridge up to our AirBnB in north eastern DC, we drove through the center of town, getting lost a couple times. Washington driving is not for the faint of heart, filled with criss-crossing streets. The layout is wonderful in 18th Century theory, but not so great nowadays.
We had booked a row house in the Pet worth District, more house than we needed, but hotels were about the same price and, this way, we had lots of room for our ten days. The place is great, but it remains to be seen how comfortable we are with the inner-city neighborhood. I suspect that not long ago, this would have been a no-go area, but gentrification has crept in. Good for AirBnB.
After a trip a few blocks north to Safeway to get some essentials, we walked south to 11th Street to an area of recommended restaurants. We chose Cisco Soles, a Mexican place, but much more imaginative than the taco restaurants back in Fresno.
As for the neighborhood, north and east seem shabby, but south was OK. We will see how we adapt.
On Saturday morning, we grabbed a bite or two at home and left to re-learn the Washington Metro system. We had chosen our Petworth location with convenient Metro travel in mind and we had a particularly long ride planned. We walked for five uphill minutes to the Georgia/Pet worth Green Line station and descended deep below. The station had a mural on the walls, not quite Soviet-Kiev fancy, but nice.
From Georgia/Petworth, we rode seven stops and changed to the Silver Line at L'Enfant Plaza. We would ride this line to Ashburn Station at the very end, way out in Northern Virginia. By the time we passed Dulles Airport, there was no one left on the train but us. Our friend Jon met us in the almost-empty "Kiss & Ride" pickup area.
We had first met Jon and Mary Bowen when they gave us a tour of the Kyiv metro, over a quarter-century ago. He was with the US State Department and she taught with Marianne at Kyiv International School. Over the years since, we have managed to stay in touch, with occasional visits and, more recently, Zoom gatherings with other Kyiv friends.
Jon gave us a driving tour of the local part of Loudoun County, pointing out dozens of massive data centers that are a key part of the country's internet structure. Along with data centers, there were scores of large apartment and condominium complexes, filling space that was farm land just a few years ago. The county population is growing faster than any other county in the US.
Several months ago, Jon and Mary sold their inner-suburb home and moved to Ashby Ponds, a senior community now housing 2,000 people. After a delicious lunch Mary had prepared based on Sicilian food they had experienced in a recent Italian visit, we were given a tour of a few of the buildings and one or two of the community centers and restaurants. All in all, it was an impressive facility and Mary and Jon seemed quite happy with their decision.
On the hour and a half subway ride back, we talked about our own plans for "the next stage". We are not ready yet, but the idea of a take-all-the-house-worries-away community is attractive. I'm not so comfortable with an all-old community. In any event, we will look around once we are back in California.
Back in Petworth, we had a nice meal at Queen's English, a fusion between Hong Kong Chinese and English food. It was a bit pricey, with unusual tastes, but considered worthwhile in the end.
On the five minute walk back, we saw another street of row houses and the evening light helped our neighborhood impression. It's growing on us.
We had decided Sunday would be a rest and prepare day, not an all-out tourist assault on Washington DC. We are slow travelers, and this is part of the way we feel at home on the road. We slept in, sort of. For me, that means up and active at 5:45, instead of 5:00. For Marianne, it's later.
By 8:30, we were at The Coupe for breakfast, just a few minutes walk away. This Sunday was Father's Day, and the place was filled with Fathers - and small kids. It was as noisy as a kindergarten, but it was a fun sound, even if it prevented much conversation between us two elders.
I have noticed that our neighborhood has plenty of young adults, many with small children, but very few families with school-age children. Small row houses give way to larger suburban ones and public schools are not a strength of our nation's capital. Like in most places, good private schools exist, but they are expensive.
The rest of our day went as planned - catching up on diaries, trip bookkeeping, planning our tourist stops, and general distraction from our screens. However, the TV did not work until late in the day when our host came by to give us instructions. When he was here, we learned that he bought this place in 2002, remodeled it himself, and lived here most of the time since. I think that explains why our AirBnB is so well-equiped. He just retired as an architect, and that explains why the house is so well put-together.
In the afternoon, I walked the neighborhood a little and took pictures of the houses. A majority of them are well cared for, but there are a few that still need some restoration and rebuilding.
Zillow values one large place at almost one million dollars,
but it might take that much again to get beyond the "unsafe for occupancy" notice.
We are no longer interested in such projects.
For dinner, we decided on an at-home picnic. We had picked up a few things at a local convenience store and enjoyed our quiet meal. Maybe we should have felt guilty about doing so little on a travel day, but we didn't. It was all according to plan.
Tomorrow we will start our assault on Washington, DC. It's not clear how much we will see, since we are not the Spring chickens we used to be and since part of the week will be very hot and humid. We'll see.
On Monday, we started with a simple breakfast at home: bread, cheese, croissant, scone, fruit. And quiet. I think we may make this our regular start. Then we slowly got ready. There are all sorts of considerations before we leave the house, and I had to remind myself that we would see what we could, not everything Washington DC has to offer.
Out the door, I set our navigation to our first stop and, guided by my new smart watch, we found the subway on and off and the few minute walk to our first stop, the Hirshorn Museum.
Before I describe our visit, I need to explain how I will try to handle pictures. At the Hirshorn, we took more than 100 photos and at our second stop, The East Wing of the National Gallery of Art, we took twice that. That is far too many for a diary audience, no matter how dedicated.
My plan will be to show just one or two shots from each museum and, eventually, have stand-alone pages for enough pictures from each museum to fully illustrate what we saw. That may take a few days or more. This is more for our own review and memories than for any broad audience. But, as with everything on trotter.ws, it's all public.
The Hirshhorn is a national museum of modern and contemporary art and probably Marianne's favorite Washington venue. The two circular gallery floors present selections of very striking works, including this welcoming by Ghanaian Amoako Boafo. Other areas have installations that cover walls and simply can not be captured in two-dimensional photos. You have to be there.
(Here is the link to the Hirshhorn photo gallery.)
After our required time inside, we crossed the Mall, looking over to the Capital Building. The last time we were here, that landmark was a little dingy, but has had a years-long process of cleaning and restoration.
Midway across the green, we were distracted by three young people raising money for Doctors Without Borders. Their enthusiasm, the bright sunny day, and our long-standing admiration for the group's work, led us to sign up for monthly donations. I think that was good use of our positive vacation mood.
From donations, it was direct to the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art. This gallery too is focused on modern and contemporary art. An exhibition titled "Woven Histories" had drawn Marianne to make the East Wing our second-most important stop, and it was truly unique. The rest of the building houses art of a more traditional variety, but two hundred photos later, we had seen enough.
Here is the link to the National Gallery East Wing photos.
Maybe we had seen too much, or at least taken too long. We were grumpy and hungry. To solve this, we tried to find descent food inside the museum. First, we went to the tunnel area between the East Wing and West wings. Nice picture, but the cafeteria ambiance was dark and cavernous, so we backtracked to the "Terrace Cafe", where we found a nicer setting and over-priced sandwiches.
After a last pass through the East Wing, we walked to the Metro and headed home, satisfied with our first assault on DC tourism.
Our Tuesday plans had to change at the last minute when Google told us the National Building Museum was closed on Tuesday and Wednesday. Our host had recommended it, and it would have been a break from art, but that will wait for another day. Speaking of our AirBnB, we have noticed that it has about as many fire engines zooming past as our home in Fresno.
The Metro ride downtown was empty, more so than I would have expected on a work day. We are about midway on the northeast leg of the Green line, but did not see many commuters at all. Maybe everybody has shifted to remote work?
For a non-art stop, I had stumbled across the Museum of Illusions on H Street. Unlike Smithsonian museums, this one is not free, but it turned out to be a real hoot. Inside was a collection of optical illusions, many of which we have seen before, but one after another it was fun. Lots of laughter from all the folks there.
(As with yesterday's tourist stops, I am only showing a picture or two, but here is a link to a photo gallery.)
A ten-minute walk through the center of downtown brought us to the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Again not a Smithsonian venue, so a fee was being charged, but our Fresno Art Museum membership was good enough for free entry. That almost paid for our FAM annual charge.
Here, there were four-and-a-half floors of work by women artists with everything from paintings and weaving to heavy welded sculpture. The breadth of the types of art was part of the museum's theme: women can do anything. I would not argue. (A link to photo gallery.)
Next up, we thought we could walk to a museum or two down on the Mall, but the afternoon temperature was getting to us, so we ducked into a nearby Metro stop to re-plan. We concluded that two tourist stops was about all our 70-somthing constitutions could handle in the Spring heat, so we rode back to our neighborhood. (Later this week, Summer will arrive with much higher temperatures and we may need to curb our ambitions even more.)
Since it was still early, there was time to stop by Odd Provisions, a small bodega that offers snacks and quick food. Later, we tried Makan for a Malaysian dinner. It was all good. I think we are really getting into our subway and walkable city life.
Wednesday was June 19th, Juneteenth. Celebrating this commemoration of the news of Proclamation in Washington seemed appropriate, since many local families date from the freed forefathers.
After an at-home breakfast, we got on the Metro at Georgia/Petworth, transferred at L'Enfant, and exited at Smithsonian, with a view of the Washington Monument. Getting around via the Washington Metro is the easiest travel we ever have and it was almost empty, despite (because of?) the federal holiday.
Our first stop, of course, was the African-American History Museum. There was a line to get in and we had to make last-minute reservations for "timed entry", but the process was straightforward. Inside by noon, we stopped at the information desk to get a briefing. The museum is multi-level, about half underground and half above.
About all we saw on this busy day was a ballet exhibition in the lobby itself. Crowds had packed the main museum while we were watching, so we resolved to try to find another, less-crowded day to see the whole facility. (Here will be a link to the ballet. And another one for the next time. Maybe.)
Across The Mall, we went to the pair of collections that make up the National Museum of Asian Art. This museum combines the Freer Gallery (aka: The West Wing) for pieces from the extensive Freer family collection, and the Arthur M. Sakler Gallery (aka: The East Wing) for old and newer work sponsored largely by the wealthy drug family. Interestingly, the name "Sakler" has been removed from almost everything but carved stone, in light of the OxyContin debacle.
The collections were extensive, from Japan to India and everywhere in between. I have now added the photo slide show so I can remember what we saw.
That's one of the problems with these massive Smithsonian galleries and museums. Each could be explored for hours, but human saturation happens well before the displays run out.
The gardens east of the Asian museums are bordered by the Old Smithsonian building and by the African Art Museum, but we only had the stamina for a quick visit to the African museum store and a handful of garden flower pictures. The grounds around the Mall and the Smithsonian buildings is amazing, considering the millions of folks that pass this way.
From there, it was a half-hour subway ride home, where we bought some noodles to add to leftovers to make an inexpensive meal. This was useful, since restaurant prices are a bit steep, as they are elsewhere in the aftermath of the Covid re-employment difficulties.
Thursday has started with medical complications. Over the last day or two, I have developed a rash on my shoulder, a condition that Marianne analyzed with the help of Doctor Google. She pronounced it "Shingles" and insisted that we needed to visit a clinic. Where? Urgent Care facilities in strange places do not have a good reputation. Then, good old Kaiser Permanente solved the problem. Via our normal website connection, I made a telemedicine appointment with one of their local facilities. Within an hour, I had a diagnosis (the REAL doctor agreed with Doctor Marianne/Google) and a prescription was sent to a nearby pharmacy. Problem (almost) solved.
The rest of the day was pretty normal. Our goal is still just two major attractions, and that's what we did. The first was the National Building Museum, recommended to us by our host and others. There are two attractions here. Most dramatic is the expansive atrium, a venue for Inaugural Balls and various performances. Around the sides, on two floors, are several galleries which explain aspects of what architects call "the built world". More details are shown in the photo gallery.
Our next visit was a repeat of our Juneteenth visit to the Afrian American History Museum. This time we hoped to find space in the display floors, unlike in Sunday's visit. And that was partially successful. We did manage to cover the two of three history floors, but it was not my favorite museum experience. The displays were dimly lit (hard for us seniors), crowded, and both too detailed and free from very much that we had not learned in school or other museum visits. It's a grand place, but ... (will add to earlier slide show.)
Tired, we struggled back to Metro, rode out to Georgia/Petworth, got out, and went to CVS for my new prescription. It wasn't ready yet, but the twenty-minute wait was OK, because we had chairs to rest in. It was all good.
Dinner was home cooking, or at least part that and part left-overs. Simple.
Friday was even simpler. We were both tiring, but at least got good nights' sleep. Our single target for today's tourist assault was the National Museum of American History. It is one of the giant Smithsonian buildings on the National Mall and could easily take up a few days on its own.
At the lobby information desk, I asked "What's new?" and the docent said "How long has it been?". When I said it had been years, she noted that the West Wing had been completely redone in that time. Great, that cut our target in half.
We started on Level 3, with the crowded American Democracy display. I have to admit, we learned about the grand experiment that is American democracy and appreciate even more that it may be more fragile that we believed in Civics class. In 2024, we hope it persists. After that, we covered the quieter rooms on Level 3, some rooms on Level 2, and then descended to the basement cafeteria,because we were hungry and tired. Great decision. (Photo album here.)
Fed and rested, we tried rooms on Level 1, but the air conditioning had gone into overdrive, so we opted for a walk outside. As we walked past the Natural History Museum, we paused to take some flower pictures, just because that's another "thing that we do". It is remarkable that these flowers are thriving in a crowded city environment, a tribute to Smithsonian gardeners.
Speaking of gardeners, we passed through the Sculpture Garden of the National Gallery of Art. Of the 21 sculptures listed on Wikipedia, was saw only a handful. These three, by Calder, Lichtenstein, and Samaras were remarkable, but we do need to return for the others.
And that was it. One museum, one meal, one walk, and a pair of subway rides. Enough for us.
ps: I almost forgot we did work in the weekly game night (Zoom) with Jen, Brian, and Geoff. This is a nice ritual for catching up and for having some laughs as we continue to make little progress at being better at Codenames. It ALMOST made up for the no-call Fathers' Day from the boys last weekend.
On Saturday, we went to our final art exhibition with a two-for-one visit to the Old Patents Office Building. The 19th Century Greek Revival building hosts both the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) and the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM). Each organization has enough on display for hours-long browsing, but other than a short when we got lost, we avoided portraits for the Modern and Contemporary offerings of Contemporary and Modern Art.
The Old Patent Office was built with immense rooms because, at the time, models for every patent needed to be displayed. The SAAM works extend over three and a half floors of half this space, enabling showing of many really large works. It was great fun such large-ness and it meant every visitor had space to do their own contemplation. A gift, after some of the more crowded venues we had been squeezed into. (Here is the link into our scores of photos.)
After all this we were hungry, and did not want to take the easy way out of using the museums cafeteria, although it does have plenty of space for crowds in the closed-over atrium, a ballroom also used for inaugural balls and such. We will watch for it next year.
Nearby the NPF/SAAM building there are plenty of non-government restaurants as well. Many are familiar chains such as Chipotle and Five Guys (the original), or quick-stop sandwich places. We opted for Clyde's, a DC-area five-store family of nicer, full-menu restaurants. Marianne characterized the ambiance as "old fashioned clubby" and that was about right. On this afternoon it was also empty except for three or four tables of tourists. (You could recognize us because we were all in shorts and casual clothes. Not the Washington business uniform.)
Our sandwich and salad may have been the best dishes of our entire trip. This speaks well enough for Clyde's, but not so well for our culinary luck on this four-week road-trip. We tried to think back on whether we had any outstanding meals and came up empty, even though a few of our alcohol-free meals had been more than $100 for the both of us. The fact that this lunch was the same price as museum cafeterias was appreciated.
The it was time to head back to our home-away-from-home. The airport temperature had just hit 100F, making June 22nd, 2024, the hottest June day in several years. Fortunately, our downtown Metro stop had been near both the museums and the restaurant and Metro trains and stations are always cooled, sometimes too much. At the Petworth end, we ascended the long escalator into a sauna, glad it was only a six-minute walk home. I can not imagine how these row houses were in pre-AC summers.
Sunday, our 24th day on the road, was an off-duty day. We started with a light breakfast at a local French bakery, not exactly a Paris sidewalk cafe, but OK enough.
Back at Garrett's AirBnB, we watched Sunday news programs, always a bit unsettling, and then finished those "chores" we like to keep up with: diaries, trip cost accounting, Facebook postings, reading, YouTube, and Netflix. Except for an excursion for a mediocre Mexican lunch, we stayed inside, out of the record DC heat.
We tried to remember our favorite and least-favorite meals, accommodations, and visited-attractions. Mostly, things blended, so we could not identify best or worst. Overall, we had to admit this was not a good food trip, despite the relatively high prices we paid for several mediocre meals. Accommodation was also a bit pricey, especially the two nights up in Estes Park. I understand the place has a short tourist season, but they seemed to want to make all their money when we were there.
The award for best attractions and housing for a specific part was probably here, in Washington, D.C. The Smithsonian collection is absolutely amazing in variety and in ease to visit. We seriously visited just eight venues, out of over three dozen. And there are non-Smithsonian places too. We have been here ten days, and heat (and age?) kept us at home a couple of days, so we need to come back a few more times!
We are both looking forward to being home, even if getting there will be stressful.
On Monday, the plan was to pack up, leave about noon (EDT), drive to Baltimore Washington International, drop off the car, drop off the bags, pass through security, and wait for United 2012, hoping it is on time. Then the four-hour flight to Denver and a short transfer to the Fresno flight. If all goes well, we should be home on Cambridge Avenue by 10:00pm (PDT), thirteen hours after leaving our New Hampshire Avenue vacation home. Did it happen like that?
Mostly. We were able to squeeze in a lunch with son Geoff, since he works next to the Baltimore Washington International Airport. Drop-ins like this are something that would be nice if we lived something other than a coast away. We will try to make gatherings more frequent than they have been in the last years. I promise.
Check-in and security at BWI were easy. It's a bit of a hike out to United's D Concourse gates, but a little walk isn't a bad idea before four-hours sitting in a plane seat. Speaking of seats, we lucked out with exit-row that had tons of leg room. In the bad old days, when I was on airplanes a lot, I used to search out these seats, but this time the travel gods just took care of us. Thanks.
We arrived a little early in Denver and that was good since our planned layover was under an hour and United's B Gates at DEN can be pretty spread out. It turned out that the layover was longer than planned, reportedly because the Midwest had been experiencing thunderstorms that had disrupted inbound and outbound traffic. Eventually, we found our correct gate and went on-board to a second set of extra-legroom, exit-aisle, seats. Nice.
Flying out of Denver was a bit bumpy, as it often is above the Rockies, but not too bad. Our pilot found a shortcut to Fresno-Yosemite International Airport (call sign "FAT". Sheesh) so we landed a few minutes early, only to discover that another pair of planes had landed just before and monopolized the gates and ground equipment. It was 20 minutes before we could pull up to a gate and another 40 minutes before we could get luggage.
Marianne's sister picked us up and we made it home by about 10:00 pm, almost exactly as predicted the evening before. Lucky.
Now we will get back to home life, until we find an excuse to go somewhere again.
Stay tuned,
John and Marianne