Second Chances (and more) in DC

Greg had a tax seminar in DC, Claire had Girl's Camp, so I decided to go to DC.
Saturday July 24th
Fun on the plane.
Use your imgination...

Fun in Baltimore
Doesn't this look like a fancy place? What is it? An art Museum? Nope, it's the rental car building for the BWI Airport
We missed this our first time out East so first stop on the road to 2nd chances was a trip to Charm City Cakes, home of the the show Ace of Cakes.
Yep - I was there.
Greg noticed a sign on the establishment across the street that read "We sell Charm City Cake shirts..." and other things. We stopped in and decided to have dinner there. The Dizz was featured on an Ace of Cakes episode - a celebration for The Dizz breakfast and Duff made a breakfast cake for them. We met the gal who was on that episode - she found us shirts in the sizes we needed. Was very nice service, the meal was good.

Sunday - July 25th
The view from our room
The Washington Monument

In the distance you can see the top of the Lincoln Memorial and beyond that, "sitting" on top of the Lincoln Memorial, you can see Arlington House.

Another sight from our window was tons of scouts! They were everywhere. Walking all around the streets in their perfectly matching outfits.
We went to church to the same ward we attended 18 months ago. We recognized some of the members. It was a full group - we sat out in the foyer (which we learned from a woman giving a talk on modern pioneers that she had lived there for many years and remembers when the Church acquired the building we were meeting in - a former Safeway). There was a baby blessing which contributed to the larger group - the baby was named George Lincoln - they will call him Lincoln. We met some other people who were visiting. A family from Iraq - Br. and Sister Morrell and two of their children who are headed on missions in August and Sept. They have 9 children and the missionaries are children number 2 and 3. The mom and dad brought them to DC so they could go to the temple with them and the missionaries will head on to Utah, where they are originally from, and go to the MTC from there. We also met the Ahlstroms from Lehi Utah. She is an award winning Science teacher and was invited back to DC to help select next years candidates. We invited them to a Pioneer Music Celebration that would be held at the DC Temple Visitors Center.

On our way back to the hotel from church there was a lot of traffic. Roads through The Mall were closed. We had no idea what was going on. But finally, at one intersection we saw the hold up. It was a parade - a Scout Parade. And finally I remembered why there were so many scouts in town - it was a 100 years celebration going on. After a chat with Bruce we learned the National Jamboree was on in DC.

We spent the afternoon in our hotel room. I decided to sit in the window sill and watch the people come and go. Kind of reminded me of watching Eric play Roller Coaster Tycoon - people moving around from place to place. The real thing to watch ended up being a storm that rolled in. It blew in actually - it blew in so quickly it was amazing how fast it came. I watched the land marks disappear, the wind pick up and the rain come pouring down - and of course the people scattering for shelter. I thought how fun and exciting it would be to get caught in that storm. But I felt a little sorry for the people who were riding around on the top level of the double-decker buses. But after a few minutes of downpour those top levels cleared out. It just poured and poured and the lightening and thunder came. It was quite a sight. The storm left as quickly as it came. Greg thinks it lasted 30 minutes, I think it was less than that, but once it was gone, it was gone - clear skies were back and sidewalks filled with people again - it seemed they appeared from nowhere.



A visit to the square outside our hotel. You'd never know there'd been a rainstorm an hour or so before.



At 6pm we picked up the Ahlstroms and headed to the temple. We made a connection with them - they are the in-laws to Sarah Mosher who is the niece of friends who used to live in the Branham ward. Our drive to the temple was through residential area and to our surprise we began to realize this storm was a big deal. Power was out, stop lights dark, limbs of trees and full trees lay in the streets blocking roads and brought down power lines. We'd had no idea the storm had been as serious as it was. Suddenly I felt bad for being excited for the storm. It ended up being quite harrowing for many people, and some people lost their lives. In some places it took several days to restore power. It was a sad thing.

We arrived to the temple. It was a beautiful sight but unfortunately, the power was out at the visitors center and the fireside had been canceled. We opted to stroll around the grounds and then head back to DC. The Ahlstroms are very nice people, very easy to talk to. We enjoyed their company. We dropped them to their hotel and Greg and I decided to head for the National Shrine - the next site on our road to 2nd chances.
The National Shrine



This was a common site on Sunday night.

Before we left for DC I had a thought that maybe I'd see fireflies. Sure enough, I saw them Sunday night. Be patient with the video - the flashes are the fireflies. And turn up the volume - the sound of the bugs in the trees - wow it was crazy...loud...deafening...siren like...(and it wasn't really so dark - it was dusk, really still quite a bit of light, just not in this video)

Done for the day, driving past the square that was across from our hotel we heard music and saw this group of people dancing. We had to investigate. Come to find out it was "Tango in DC". Every Sunday night during the summer a community group sponsors "Tango in DC" All you have to do is look at a calendar to see where they'll be dancing and show up and dance to old fashion Tango music. It was really kind of funny. Here's a blurry view from our hotel window.
Monday July
26th
Greg's seminar started bright and early Monday morning. Another man from his office attended the seminar and brought his wife and 7 month old son; Matt, Michelle and Max Deacon. Michelle, Max and I spent sometime together during the day on Monday. We visited the Smithsonian Museums of American History and Natural History. Our walk there took us past this building -
Why a picture of this building you ask? Well, Greg's a fan of Ronald - that's why. And something we found very funny - on Tuesday night we drove by this building and through a bottom window we could see fairly large photos of Obama, Hilary and one other person I don't remember who it was - maybe Biden? Makes sense it would be him with the other two but it made no sense to us that they were hanging in the Ronald Reagan Building.
The Museums were far more crowded than they were in Feb. '09. This is what most of the museum exhibit rooms looked like -

Monday night we had dinner with the Deacons. On the walk there we came upon these memorial type seals for great volunteers.
Greg's grandma's name is Clara Donna Barton Bell.
After dinner we walked to the Washington Monument, down to the Lincoln Memorial and back to our hotel.
A blurry White House which isn't on the Mall but north of the Mall.

The World War II Memorial

Tuesday July 27th
I spent the entire afternoon in the National Gallary of Art. Unfortunately, a great deal of that time was spent trying to figure out where I had been already and where I was going next, it is kind of like a maze in these museums. But I did get my fill. This definitely was a 2nd chances day - when we left DC last time I told Greg that if he ever had business in DC, even if it were just for a day, that I'd go with him, just so I could spend time in this museum.
I started my late morning eating a bagel while watching the people at this fountain.
A conversation I overheard was a little boy to his dad "Why aren't people supposed to wait here?" What people aren't supposed to do is "wade". Sure was a lot of feet soaking going on though. And little bodies had the hardest time keeping it only to their feet. I haven't mentioned the weather - besides our storm. It was hot and humid. I don't know how bad humid gets but it seemed pretty intense while we were there. The storm brought some cool down though so that was nice but cool is relative. The evenings were fairly pleasant - and the humidity went down some on Monday and Tuesday. The fountain is in the sculpture garden.
Scouts from Ohio.




Crossing the streets I came across this little decal several times. I have no idea what he's for. I'm guessing part of a map to get from one place to another? I don't know.

Some favorite paintings from this day -
Doesn't it look like this boy's head is on backwards?
This is "Portrait of a Boy" by Biagio D'Antonio 1480
This boy was hanging around with another boy who looked like his head was on backward too and I tried to snap a picture of him but I got reprimanded - that boy was on the no photographs list. Oops. But - they were both hanging out with this girl -
This is "Ginevra de' Benci" by Leonardo Da Vinci 1478- the only Da Vinci in America. This is the backside of the painting -
The laurel and palm are symbols of intellectual and moral virtue. The scroll reads "Beauty Adorns Virtue" and the Latin word for beauty twines around the juniper. There's a Young Women lesson in there somewhere.
This is "Saint Lucy" by Francisco De Zurbaran 1630. I don't know her story but I'm concerned for her because of what she holds on her tray. Yikes. Maybe another Young Women lesson?

Of course I love any painting with flowers. I just wish I had a steadier hand.
This is "Vase of Flowers" by Jan Davidsz. De Heem 1645. Some close ups - again, not steady enough. Ugh. Just try and imagine...


Who wouldn't love a painting that has such detailed bugs in it? Well, I guess Claire wouldn't. She doesn't like it when bugs come in the house on the flowers from the garden - I'll just have to say it is real life imitating art ;-P.

Beautiful! "Still Life with Flowers and Fruit" by Jan Van Huysum 1715 - since there're ants in the painting - can it really be called a still life?

I did a little better on these photos - but ended up getting scolded for standing too close to the painting. Oops again.
These two pictures crack me up. The same subject, but different painters. Bubbles must have been *in* that century.
I can just imagine the kids saying "Hey Dad! Get a picture of the bubble." "Soap Bubbles" by Charles Amedee Philippe Van Loo 1764.

This bubble blower is older - see the kid in the background? I'm sure he's thinking "OK, I get how to do it. When's it my turn?!" "Soap Bubbles" by Jean Simeon Chardin 1734.

This is "A Friendly Call" by William Merritt Chase 1895.

I looked at this painting for awhile. I've decided it's not really such a friendly call. I think the woman in white, with her face veiled, is the visitor and she's come to bug the woman in yellow about what is and isn't acceptable in their community. I think her veiled face means she's hiding something even though she's dressed in virtuous white. And the red spatters about the room are regular imperfections but the lady in white is pointing them out to the poor lady in yellow. Doesn't she look kind of sickly - I'm sure it is more the age of the painting but I think the lady in white is making the lady in yellow uncomfortable.

More to come I hope. My pop up blocker is blocking my download thing for pictures on blogger. I have some more fun things to post but they'll have to wait.