a handful of hatchlings: Washington DC part II

On our third day in Washington, we headed to the Ford theatre where Lincoln was assassinated. luckily we were able to get tickets at the door (for free!), but we had a bit of time on our hands before our ticket time so we walked a few blocks to tour the national archives.

We didn't have a ton of time to spend here so we just hit the highlights: the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. And again because of the frail nature of the documents, no photos were allowed, but can I just say "Wow!" I could feel the hallowed reverence of the documents as soon as I entered the rotunda where they are on display.

After spending a few days in the Capital, I was really beginning to feel spirit it imbues: a sense greatness and pride in our nation. We truly are blessed to live in such a great country and as bad as things are now politically, it is vastly reassuring to know that our government was built upon a sure foundation. Countless lives have been spent in ensuring our freedoms, something I always knew and appreciated but the whole Washington DC experience makes it become something real and very much worth fighting for. I felt bad we didn't get to spend more time looking at the other displays, but that's the thing with DC, everything is amazing and top notch and it's like every museum is vying for your time and attention, easily could have spent twice as much time everywhere we went and we still wouldn't have seen or read or done it all.

Ford's theatre didn't disappoint. After walking through a small-ish museum highlighting Lincoln's presidency throughout the war, we were invited into the theatre which is still a working theatre, where a spirited park ranger powerfully unfolded the story of his assignation right where it happened. After the 30 minute presentation, we headed across the street to the house where he was taken after he was shot and subsequently passed away. Very neat.

We experimented with fried chicken and waffles for lunch and then headed over to the National Art Museum. I was so excited to share this museum with the kids. We started out with a little medieval art and the Renaissance, which admittedly gets old and very catholic quickly. Plus a lot of naked bodies. By the time we got to Rembrandt, I realized I was loosing them. So in a feeble attempt to revive them, I gave them a quick art history lesson, explaining about chiaroscuro, and what it was that made him so famous. Then they read the plaque hanging next to painting and just about knocked their socks off, when they realized that I do know a few things, having just told them everything on the plaque. "Wow, mom you could have written that." --ahh, the sweetness of it all.

Jotham was finishing up with meetings about now and met up with us at the museum about mid afternoon. Walking through an art museum wasn't something he was particularly looking forward to after a long grueling week of convention work and talked the kids into heading over to the Air and Space Museum with him. Wishing we'd started with the impressionists and the Romantics, that I know they would have enjoyed more, I was a more than a little sad to see them go, but I wasn't going to miss out on rest the of the museum to see moon rocks and so we went our separate ways. And I thoroughly enjoyed seeing original Monet's, Degas and Van Gogh's and feel in love with Whistler and Sargent, and renewed my love for Mary Cassatt.

This painting by Whisler trilled me to see as it is also on the cover of one of my favorite books, the Woman in White by Wilkie Collins.

I think, if they'd had time to do both, the kids would have enjoyed seeing the rest of the art museum, but they were off onto other adventures with their Dad tracing the history of flight. From the original Wright brother's flyer:

To the Spirit of St. Louis:

to the plane that broke the sound barrier:

And Apollo 11:

and moon rocks.

But once again, the museum closed before they finished seeing it all. And after we met back up, I talked them into seeing more art at the National Portrait Gallery since it stayed open until 7pm. In college, I usually made flashcards to help me prep for tests and the Portrait Gallery was like a giant, visual stack of flash cards. Who's this person and why are they famous, it was like the capstone to my education, the final test. Almost 20 years later, Bro Bassett would be pleased with how much I remembered. It was like playing a game: This is Jane Addams, why is her portrait here? and so on and so forth. (Jotham wasn't enjoying this by the way.)

It was also fun to run into some famous Mormons while playing my game.

We were always surprised to run into little bits of Mormonism in the Capital. Like the sunstone from the Nauvoo Temple hanging out next to Kermit in the History Museum or the statue of Brigham Young in the Capital

On our last day in DC we tried to play clean up, which lead to spending a lot of time walking to and from places. We started by walking to the Lincoln Memorial from our Hotel.

Then took the scenic pedestrian route to the Jefferson Memorial, via the cherry trees that are so famous in the spring. Noticing of everything we didn't have time to see along the way, ie the Holocaust Museum, the printing museum, etc.

Jotham really enjoyed our unplanned visit our founding father, George Mason's memorial.

A little bit of street food for lunch:

The kids had really wanted to try out the simulators at the Space Museum before it closed, so we swung past there again. Hannah was so funny, we could hear her screaming from inside the simulator, "No Hyrum, Hy...RUM! No!" the whole time.