National Gallery Sculpture Garden

What to you do after an all day, indoor workshop where you sit for one-long session after another?  Walk, and then walk some more.  And keep going for two hours and 3.65 miles.

We were released from our workshop at 5:00 this evening.  I was surprised to walk out of the basement auditorium and find daylight.  A colleague had mentioned walking through an outdoor sculpture garden by a skating rink last night, and I mentally filed that away.  I walked back to the hotel with a group of coworkers and instead of going in, I decided to take a little walk.  Well...it turned out to be not so little.  In a race against the fading light of sunset, I walked/ walked with really long strides and even ran a bit from H Street and 17th Street.  I went past the Executive Office Building where my view of the Washington Monument gave me pause (love the sun reflection on one side of the monument and shadow on the other and the pink light at the horizon),

past the White House and around the Ellipse (where I took the requisite tourist picture)

and continued east on Constitution Ave until I got to 9th Street.  I hooked a right on 9th and walked another block south until I found the sculpture garden.  By this time, there was very little light in the sky and I had a moment of disappointment where I thought I wouldn't be able to see anything.  But not to worry, I enjoyed the way the car lights and spot lights shone on the pieces.  In the darkness, I'm sure that there were pieces that I missed.  But I had fun with those that I did see.

First up was this:

followed by "Personnage Gothique, Oiseau-Eclair" JoanMiro (I opened up the lens, so this look lighter than it really was and I didn't frame it right and I cut off the bird at the top.  Oops.)

and the "Thinker on a Rock" which reminded me of the children's stories Sylvester and the Magic Pebble and Do You Know How Much I Love You?

There were other abstract steel shaped pieces.

And then this gorgeous "Cheval Rouge" by Alexander Calder.  The night sky by this time was deep blue and the redness really stood out.  It doesn't look that way in my pictures, but the contrast was striking.

As I walked around the Calder, I saw the Capitol in the distance.  Whoa!

With my zoom, there wasn't enough light for me to get a really crisp shot.  I was cold, my hand was trembling a bit and the scaffolding makes it appear even more fuzzy.  But man, was it beautiful!

The skating rink looked like a fun place.  The building in the background is the National Gallery of Art, West Building.

So, mission accomplished.  And then I realized it was dark, and I was standing at 9th and Madison and I was cold and hungry.  I decided to walk up 9th to F street and then go west.  Between 13th and 14th I stopped at District Taco and picked up lime rice and guacamole to augment my baked tofu that I had bought at the market yesterday.  I continued on F until I couldn't go further without running into the Treasury Building.  I headed north on 15th street until H street.  I went west on H and then went into Lafayette Square.  All day, the paths and streets around the White House were blocked off with yellow caution tape.  As I walked into the Square, it looked like people were on Pennsylvania Ave, close to the White House. Sure enough, the tape was down and I got to take a selfie.

After that, straight back to the hotel to phone home and then eat.

Yum!  Did I mention that I passed by the American Institute of Architecture this morning on my way to the Workshop?

Or that I had such a beautiful and delicious breakfast from the comfort of my hotel room?  What a great start and end to my day.

Library of Congress

For somebody who has never lived in DC, I've spent many weeks here since 2011.  And yet, prior to this morning, I had never been to the Library of Congress.  What was I thinking?  With my penchant for photographing archways and columns and cool architectural detail, clearly, this was an oversight.

I arrived in DC this morning, and mercifully, was able to check into my hotel at 9:00.  I unpacked, ate my breakfast snack, and went out while I still had caffeine coursing through my system and my body was on an adrenaline high of making it out of Boston.  I walked up to K street and hopped on the Circulator to Union Station.  From there, I walked the 1/2 mile or south along First St to the Library.

On the way, I passed by the Russel Senate Office building and saw this gorgeous door and entry way.   Can you say secret garden?

I walked by the Supreme Court,

Amazingly, no snow here.

and the back side of the Capitol. I can imagine people seeing this building for the first time might be a tad disappointed that the dome is covered in scaffolding.

In front of the Library of Congress is this fountain.  Without water, it isn't as spectacular as it could be.  I had to use my imagination a bit.  But I love fountain sculpture, even without water.  I really liked the turtles that are swimming, four of them ringing the edge.  But they didn't photograph very well.  For one thing, I think they have the water spraying mechanisms in their mouths and they look creepy in a picture.

I made my way up the stairs and entered the Library.  I had to go through a metal detector and have my bag x-rayed.  All worth it, I assure you, when I looked up in the Great Hall.

My pictures do not do the Hall justice.  This is jaw dropping, twirl around and around with my neck up, getting dizzy, kind of ceiling gazing.  I used my camera and my phone camera.  It didn't matter that no flash was allowed.  I snapped away like a woman obsessed.  It was glorious.  And I bet it would be even better on a sunny day.

I meandered through a few special exhibits, but they didn't hold my interest as much as the floor mosaics or the ceiling paintings.  Although I did spend some time in the Civil Rights exhibition and the Thomas Jefferson Library section.  I scanned the books,

but the ceiling grabbed me too.

Can we talk main reading room?  I wasn't part of any official tour, but I tagged along with a school group from southern California so that I could get the view.

Figure detail

Detail of the archways

Detail of the center ring under the top dome.

That same school group clustered around the Gutenberg Bible and the Giant Bible of Mainz.  I saw them both, but at a distance.  However, I did get a closer view of some old maps.  Bonus!

Maine was so small then.

New Hampshire and Irocoinia

I gazed and took pictures for over an hour until I started to get a bit light headed and realized I needed to eat.

 In my guidebook I had seen a reference to a Thai place near by.  I continued south on First and found Talay Thai and it did not disappoint.  I ate the Mussaman Curry with tofu and couldn't finish.  I would have, had I any room left in my stomach.  It was that good.  There were people eating lunch and taking out additional orders to go.  That kind of place.

I walked back up the street to the Capitol South Metro and rode to Foggy Bottom.  I stopped at Whole Foods and picked up some yogurt, granola, and fruit so that I could eat breakfast in my room and not have to eat out three meals a day for the next three days.  I walked along I and H streets until I came to my hotel.

I'm so glad that I got the opportunity to see beautiful architecture, sculpture, paintings.  And that I remembered how to best navigate the city and get to where I wanted to go.  It has been a good day.

Winter Storm Linus

I seem to be blogging about the weather an awful lot these days.  A week after we got walloped with 28-35 inches of snow (depending on who you ask), Winter Storm Linus arrived.  That would have been fine, but I was scheduled for a noon-time flight out of Logan today.  All weekend I stressed about what I should do.  Because I didn't book my ticket, I couldn't change it on-line.  I didn't think that the travel agency that booked my flight had weekend hours.  So I became more and more anxious as the forecast changed from a little storm that would hit sometime in the afternoon, to another big one, dropping 8-14" and beginning in the predawn hours.

Yesterday morning, I decided that I would take the 3:00am bus to Boston and take my chances getting on the first flight out to DC, flying standby.  I thought that would be the safest way to go -- both in terms of not riding the bus in tons of snow and being at the airport super early and available for any flight they had.

Sunday evening I packed while watching the super bowl.  It was a great game.  I really wanted the Patriots to win.  But if they hadn't, I would have been happy for Seattle's coach and my brother.  The game was really close.  By the 3rd quarter, I found out that Mom had switched to Downton Abbey because she couldn't watch.  I settled down in the last quarter and managed not to nervously eat all the remaining snacks on the coffee table.  The last couple of plays the Patriots went from the agony of defeat to an amazing victory.  It was a wild and crazy finish.

The snacks before the game

Digging in to the food and the game

My Lovey Lamb, tummy full of veggies, chips, and guacamole, fell asleep when the Patriots were down by 10.  He remained every loyal by wearing his Brady jersey over his jammies.  Too precious.

After the excitement jolt of the game, I had trouble falling asleep, even though I knew that my alarm was going off in less than 3 hours.  Getting up at 1:45 was hard.  But it was the right call.  I drove to the bus in Portsmouth in no snow.  I found a parking space that wasn't completely snow covered from last week's blizzard.  And I was the last one to board the bus.  The leading edge of the storm hit us in Newburyport.  From there into Boston, the roads were white and the bus windshield wipers weren't working very well.  The ride was a little nervy.

We arrived at the airport around 4:30 and I was third in line at the ticket counter.  The 6:10 flight had seats available and was scheduled to depart on-time.  Once the ticket lady handed me my boarding pass, I relaxed for the first time in days.  Two other of my colleagues had changed their tickets as well and we were on the same flight.

There was a lot of chatter at the gate among all the attendants and I wondered if the flight would be cancelled after all.  It wasn't.

We had to go through the de-icing area before getting in line at the runway.  It took longer than the pilots had predicted because more snow than they had estimated had accumulated on the plane. Almost an hour after our scheduled departure time, we took off.

De-icing trucks coming for our plane

We arrived in DC to 39 and a light rain.  And in plenty of time for a tourist activity.  I'll write about that a bit later.  I need a nap first.