A Professional Dilettante

July 24: So much for the aquarium, but a good day in spite of the way it started

Tue, 26 Jul 2016 00:24:33 GMT

I’d never heard of a kiss and ride lot before.. This is at “our” Metro stop.

This morning’s wake-up was interesting, in the Chinese sense. We were awakened fairly early this Sunday morning by a lot of yelling down in the parking lot, and the sound of glass shattering. When I looked out of my window, a woman was pounding her fist on the hood of a car whose driver looked like he was considering running her over. All of this was happening in the parking space right next to Merlin. It looked scary, but by the time we were up and dressed and ready to go to breakfast, the parking lot was empty, and Merlin was fine. But when we left, there were seven, count ‘em seven police cars along the street and in the motel’s driveway. They were still there by the time we came back from breakfast, but were gone by the time we got back this afternoon.

I will be really glad to leave this motel tomorrow, believe me.

Anybody want two tickets to the National Aquarium in Baltimore? We were pretty much still recovering from yesterday’s fiasco this morning, and decided that you know, yes, it was $35 a ticket, and we’d already paid for them, but it was just more than we could handle to get up there and back, so well, that’s just the way it was.

Instead we made a short day of going back to the National Mall, taking a very short walk from the Smithsonian Metro Station to the Museum of American History, spending the morning there in the AC and eating lunch there, then walking the short walk back, poking our heads into the Smithsonian Castle, and calling it a day. For one thing, I am taking Loralee to the airport first thing in the morning, then heading north, and after six nights in one place I’ve got a lot of packing and reorganizing to do. So does she. But for another, yesterday was hard on both of us, and we just needed to take it easy.

I’m glad we got to go back to the American History Museum. I loved that museum with a passion seventeen years ago, and I still love it just as much. I adore the fact that it’s not just political or official or whatever history museum, but that it chronicles popular culture as well. We went through the room with Dorothy’s ruby slippers and Archie Bunker’s chair (as well as a lot of other interesting stuff), then we went through another exhibit chronicling American wars from the French and Indian War up through Desert Storm.

Judy Garland’s ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz.

A WWII ration book like the one Will and Karin had in Homesick.

Archie and Edith Bunker’s chairs from All in the Family.

A same-sex wedding topper!

Apolo Ohno’s speedskates from the Olympics when he took so many medals. He’s a local boy back home.

George Washington’s mess kit.

Part of the Berlin Wall.

George Washington wearing a bedsheet (it’s supposed to be a toga), carved in the 1840s. And, yes, it was controversial back then, too. It’s supposed to be all symbolic and stuff, but basically it just looks silly and disrespectful.

After lunch we headed over to the Smithsonian Castle, which I’d never been inside of before. It’s basically just the visitor center for the Smithsonian in general, but it’s a pretty building, with a nice garden out back. Oh, and James Smithson’s crypt.

Mr. Smithson’s crypt, in the Smithsonian Castle.

Then, as we were headed back to the Metro, Loralee said there was supposed to be an exhibit put on by something called Turquoise Mountain here (in a building next to the Castle) that she’d heard of, about Afghanistan, and would I mind if we stuck our heads in the door for a few minutes.

Wow, am I glad we did. Turquoise Mountain is a non-profit helping the people of Afghanistan recover their indigenous crafts and industries after so much was destroyed there, and the exhibit turned out to be one of the biggest highlights of our visit to DC. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves here, but it was gobsmacking. Beautiful, beautiful work.

I agree wholeheartedly with this statement, from the Turquoise Mountain exhibit.

Gorgeous wooden jali screens.

A hand-carved geodesic dome.

Hand-dyed wool (using natural dyes and mordants).

And the spectacular rug created from hand-dyed yarns. That thing is about 8 feet wide and 12 feet long at least, and the stitches are so *tiny*!

A close-up of the rug.

So now I’m procrastinating about packing up, and well, I need to get my act together here. It’s been a weird visit, in a lot of ways. Saw a lot of good things, had some seriously strange things happen, and I was really happy to have Loralee here.

But I have to say I’m seriously happy to be hitting the road again tomorrow, and to get the heck out of this motel.

Mirrored from M.M. Justus -- adventures in the supernatural Old West.

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July 22: History, Greek and American

Mon, 25 Jul 2016 23:52:11 GMT

A better view than yesterday’s of the Washington Monument.

Today is my mother’s 92nd birthday. Yes, I sent her flowers, and I called her. I’m a good daughter [g].

This morning, after one false start when Loralee discovered that her wallet was missing (I found it on the back of the commode in her bathroom), we went to a special temporary exhibit at the National Geographic Museum, called from Agamemnon to Alexander. All about the Greeks, and chockful of fascinating artifacts, most of which were thousands of years old. The story was really well told, too, and the exhibit was much bigger than we thought it would be. Counting the extra travel time, it took most of the day and was worth every minute.

The only bad thing was that photography was prohibited, so I can’t show it to you. Here’s the website, though: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/thegreeks/

After a lunch of crab cakes we went back to the National Mall, where we hit basically one exhibit at the National Museum of American History before we decided we’d pretty much had it for the day. The one exhibit we did look at was a history of transportation from early days till the modern era, and it was fun. It very much reminded me of the Henry Ford Museum when I was there on my last Long Trip seventeen years ago. We also briefly stuck our heads into a history of food from the 1950s to the present.

An 1840s fire truck.

A neat graphic display of Route 66.

Julia Child’s kitchen from the food exhibit.

Mirrored from M.M. Justus -- adventures in the supernatural Old West.

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July 21: All natural history, all the time

Mon, 25 Jul 2016 23:41:58 GMT

The inside of the L’Enfant Plaza Metro Station. I just love the ceiling in there.

Getting around today was much easier than yesterday, with one minor exception late this afternoon (yesterday was something of a fiasco directions-wise, but at least now I know where I’m going). We got up and onto the Metro, and took it down to L’Enfant Plaza, where we caught the circulator bus. The circulator bus goes around and around the National Mall and the Tidal Basin and up to Union Station. Unlimited rides are included in our seven-day Metro passes, which I’m really glad we bought yesterday.

We rode the bus around by Union Station and on to the National Museum of Natural History.

I’d been there before once, briefly, on my first Long Trip, but basically just to poke my head in to see the Hope Diamond late one afternoon. This time we spent the whole day there. Gemstones were just the beginning. We also saw dinosaurs, and animal skeletons (which were much more interesting than you’d think – the birds in particular just fascinated me), and the kinds of displays they called the Dead Zoo in Dublin when I was there in 1998 [g]. Lots and lots of really well constructed taxidermy, in other words.

The Washington Monument looking like it’s coming out of the tower of the Smithsonian Castle [g].

Harry the elephant in the rotunda of the Natural History Museum.

A ginormous aquamarine in the gemstone section of the Natural History Museum.

One of the heads from Easter Island. I’ve always wanted to see them in situ, but I suspect this is as close as I will get. It was right across the way from a totem pole from Washington state.

I loved, loved, loved the bone room, which was really weird. This is a swift, which is worth more than its weight in gold as a species for how many mosquitoes it eats.

The skeleton of a penguin. I had no idea they had such long necks.

A triceratops from the abbreviated dinosaur display (they’re redoing the dinosaur room and it won’t be open again till next year).

I *love* the expression on the leopard’s face.

More dead zoo, this time the Australian section.

One of the few glimpses I got of the White House. I sure hope Trump doesn’t end up living there.

After we exhausted ourselves (it’s amazing how much walking through a museum – especially a huge crowded one – can tire you out), we got back on the bus, which this time took us around by the Tidal Basin on our way back to the Metro station.

Then the Metro to our station, and back to the motel.

All in all, a really good day. Tomorrow morning we have tickets to an exhibit about the ancient Greeks at the National Geographic Museum, then we’ll probably spend the rest of the day at the American History Museum.

I could literally spend months here and not get bored. But I’d have to do something better about where to sleep.

Mirrored from M.M. Justus -- adventures in the supernatural Old West.

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July 18-20: Listees, logistics, picking up Loralee, and Washington, DC

Mon, 25 Jul 2016 23:24:42 GMT

Evidently they’ve been doing some work on the U.S. Capitol building. The scaffolding gradually disappeared over the five days of our visit.

The 18th and the 19th, with only a couple of exceptions, were mostly logistics, and I have no photos from those days, sorry [g]. The first exception was the Bujold listee dinner, which was wonderful. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting Karen, Nicholas, and Kenton, and the six of us (me, Katrina, and Teri, too) ate at an Indian restaurant. Given that this was only the second time I’d ever eaten Indian food in my life (the first time was at a James Bryant curry party at the Denver WorldCon in 2008), and the first time I’d ever ordered Indian food in a restaurant, which basically meant I was doing the equivalent of closing my eyes and poking a finger at the menu, then asking please no cilantro or coriander (same thing, different names), it was quite amazing how good my meal was. I had a very herby tomato soup, then a stew based on chickpeas that tasted basically like a really great beef stew. With the stew came what I can only label as a sopapilla (sans honey) on steroids. It covered three quarters of the plate, puffed up a good six inches, and when I tore it open a huge cloud of steam emerged. But it was all delicious. Thank you so much, Nicholas, for pulling this all together, and for paying for my meal, and to everyone else for coming. I had a marvelous time.

The next morning I said good-bye to Katrina and Teri, packed up, and headed out to run a few errands, then south to DC to the motel where Loralee and I had reservations. It’s an – interesting, yes, that’s the word – motel just over the line into Maryland from DC, and its main attraction is that it’s close to a metro station. But it’ll do. I kicked back until about three, then drove back up to the Baltimore airport to pick Loralee up.

It’s good to see her again (we live just a few miles from each other). She and I have been friends for almost a quarter century (hard to believe that!), and I’ve been looking forward to her trip here to spend time with me in DC since before I hit the road almost two months ago (you’ll note I’m not calling it Washington – it’s too confusing in my backbrain because to me Washington is on the other side of the country – so DC it is).

We made it back down to the motel (without traffic a half-hour drive – during rush hour, more like an hour and a half), went out to dinner, got her registered at the motel, and crashed.

This morning, we made something of an adventure of finding the Metro station (why not a single map in our possession marked the Metro stations I do not know), but we did, thanks to an incredibly nice lady we met in the drug store where we stopped to ask directions, who had us follow her car to it. I don’t think we’d ever have found it otherwise. Then, when we were trying to figure out the electronic ticket kiosk, a gentleman who works there helped us poor, befuddled tourists buy our pass. People have been much, much nicer here than I had been led to believe.

And at last we were on our way to the National Mall!

We ended up spending most of the day in the Museum of the American Indian, which was fascinating. That one’s been on my list since I first heard about it. It didn’t exist the last time I was here. I learned a lot about both North and South American Indians, as well as Native Hawaiians, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I also got to eat frybread with my lunch [g].

The wonderfully fluid outside of the Museum of the American Indian.

What Loralee described as a rather salacious-looking sculpture inside of the Museum of the American Indian.

One of the many gorgeous textile pieces.

Believe it or not, this is a violin. Cool, huh?

This is a 500-1000 year old Inka (that’s how it was spelled in the museum, not Inca) cloak made out of *macaw* feathers.

Then, for something completely different, we ducked into the Air and Space Museum, which was extremely crowded, so we didn’t stay long.

The original USS Enterprise model, from TOS show.

This life-sized (so to speak) Yoda was in the gift shop at the Air and Space Museum. He can be yours for the low, low price of $1000,

Loralee moves a bit more slowly than Katrina and Teri (she’s 15 years older than I am and had back surgery last year), and I have to say that was not a bad thing. We both have a few must-sees on our lists, and if we get to see most of them I’ll be happy. I’m just so glad she’s here that that’s more than enough, frankly.

Mirrored from M.M. Justus -- adventures in the supernatural Old West.

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