My Trip to Washington, DC

Hi everyone, and Happy Monday before Christmas.  One of the things I love most about December and the Christmas season is that our son has a birthday this month.  (We have three birthdays plus Christmas within a three week period around here.) In fact, his birthday was last Thursday, and I hopped on a plane to go spend the day with him.  My trip to Washington, DC where they live was full of fun, and I thought you might like to hear about it.  I absolutely love Washington, DC.  It is beautiful, well-planned, sophisticated, and full of energy.  I was there for less than 24 hours, but we had a great time.  Both Cory (his music blog here) and his wife Josie met me at the airport, and we headed right to lunch at a little lobster restaurant.  (I had shrimp and corn chowder.)

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After lunch we went to the Renwick Gallery.  If you live in or near DC or plan to be there over the holidays, try to see the current exhibit called “Wonder.”  By the way, the Renwick is part of the Smithsonian chain, and so, it is free.  It was the first museum  built expressly as an art museum in the United States and was recently renovated.

 

 

The exhibit showed the creations of eight artists who definitely think outside of the box. This one is a room full of “glaciers” made of 1 million note cards.  Someone is very patient.

 

 

This fantastic rainbow is made of string and filled the entire room.  It was so ethereal.  The ceiling was at least 20 feet tall.

 

 

There I am standing on one side of it and hamming it up for Josie. Each of their exhibits took a whole room, and they just blew me away.

 

 

This artist made a mold of a 150 year old tree.  Then he took tiny pieces of wood and rebuilt the tree using them.  They were sanded and smooth and beautiful.

 

 

Here’s another view of the tree.  I am always overwhelmed that artists can think these things up and then to actually create them.  These exhibits were huge and costly, and so, I think the phrase “it takes a village” would apply.

 

 

 

Speaking of trees, these huge “birds’ nests” were made of willow branches.  This exhibit was created on the spot.   We were able to walk inside of them.

 

 

 

This was made of what appeared to be fishing nets, and it constantly changed colors.

 

 

We were able to lie on the floor and just look up at it in wonder, which is the name of the exhibit.

 

 

This one was my favorite.  The walls of the entire room were “decorated” with bugs.  I’m not into bugs, but the colors were beautiful, and my clothes just happened to match the room perfectly.  The walls were “painted” with crushed bug juice.  I know…..it sounds horrible.  The bugs are not endangered, and they came from Southeast Asia.

 

 

Yes, they were huge.  There were three other exhibits, but I think you get the idea.

 

After visiting the gallery, we walked over to the White House to just take a peek through the fence.  Thankfully, all was calm there.  The three of us took a White House Christmas tour a few years ago, and I wrote about it here.

 

 

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Then we went for pie at Dangerously Delicious Pies and ordered two servings – apple (my fave) and Baltimore bomb (the shop’s most popular.)  The owner, who is from Ireland and has a wonderful accent, just happened to walk by, and we had a nice conversation with him.  When he found out it was Cory’s birthday, he gave us a piece of roasted apple pie.  All were yummy, but the Baltimore bomb was definitely the bomb.  There was so much pie that we had to get a to-go box, and that became my dinner later on.  I told him about two great pies that we have written about – white potato pie and transparent pie.

After pie we went to a middle school basketball game to cheer on their nephews.  We had reservations at a Thai restaurant at 8:30, but I decided to let them have their evening alone, and I bowed out.  After all, I had gotten up at 3:45 that morning to get to my flight on time and was rising at 5:00 the next morning to fly home.  My flight was scheduled for 9 a.m., but when I arrived at the airport, I learned the flight was delayed till 4:00.  They were nice enough to rebook me on a flight that left at noon.  I always go with the flow when these things happen.  I can’t stand to watch the way some people behave in airports when their flights are changed.  If you are going to travel, you have to be flexible and be prepared for any changes.  The change was to my advantage because I was seated beside Congressman Bennie Thompson who is chair of Homeland Security.  I ‘m not gonna lie.  I felt pretty safe sitting next to him.  We chit-chatted a little, and he was very nice.  And just so you know, he was waiting till Christmas eve to do his shopping.

 

You all know that we do a lot of traveling, and we love it.  It’s always great to go away, and it’s always great to come home.  I’m so glad I was able to spend a special day with Cory and Josie.  It’s one I won’t ever forget.

Take care.