The not-just-white-house

The most exciting (by far) aspect of my recent trip to our nation's capital involved tours of a building that I hadn't been near in quite some time...

This picture was taken in 1953, when Mom and I met Dad in Washington. He had some leave from his 18-month tour of duty in Newfoundland. Being only a little over 4 at the time, I really have no memory of the White House; I have no idea if we went inside and met Ike  or not.

But I will long remember my 2015 visit, when I not only got to see the inside of this part of the place—here it is today, a photo I snapped after we exited our tour:

—but I also got to see the working side, which not too many people are privileged to do. More about that later.

Thanks to my wonderful niece (more about her later, too) a couple of friends and I were able to play hooky from our conference for most of the last morning and tour the East Wing. This is a public tour, but you normally do have to sign up months in advance. Molly was able to expedite this process for us, although we did have to give information for a background check, and then get checked off at not one, but two checkpoints before entering. Not that we minded. In fact, we found the level of security comforting and the Secret Service guys and gals that handled it were professional and courteous.

Here's a shot of some lovely and well-tended flowerbeds I enjoyed as we waited outside one of the checkpoints:

All of the grounds were similarly well-cared-for and bursting with fall color...a perfect complement to the very white exterior walls of La casa blanca.

These beautiful grounds not only look great from the outside, but they provide gorgeous vistas from the inside, too...

But of course the main attractions are inside the place. And what fabulous attractions! From the quirky to the incredibly elegant. You can see a lot more on the official webpages (Whitehouse.gov is very good for history and details), but here are some of my best photos:

State Dining Room
(isn't that a great painting of Lincoln?)

I loved all the historical photos lining the corridor walls...
this one shows Princess Diana dancing with John Travolta!

from Abraham Lincoln's china service

on the wall in the Green Room

the rest of the Green Room

the Red Room
(my best shots were usually verticals since the ceilings are so high!)

the Blue Room was my favorite of the colors...
...but I think the painted-on faux valence around the ceiling was a little weird

What a gorgeous place! I'm rather proud to have it as a symbol of our country's government, pleased with its museum-like features, and very grateful to have had this chance to walk through it.

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The night before, though, we had an even more exciting tour.

Unfortunately, we couldn't take pictures inside this time, but I do have a few to show you. The one above is what the north portico of the White House looks like when you exit from....The West Wing!

As a long-time devoted fan of this '90's TV show, I was so very, very excited to get to see the real thing. It was so cool! 

The link above, btw, is from the official Whitehouse website, and it goes into great detail about various movies and shows that have featured the White House, and how accurate or inaccurate the set designs are. The sections on The West Wing make great reading for fans. And they also supported my impression that the real thing is much smaller and more cramped, with a few exceptions, than it was portrayed on the show.

The biggest exception is the Oval Office, which I so wish I could have snapped for you. It's rather spacious, although probably not commensurate with its place in the popular imagination.

We were allowed to take pictures in the Press Briefing Room, which is incredibly smaller than it looks on TV, even in actual videos taken in the actual room. An interesting example of how your mental picture of a space can distort it. Anyway, on the left above you can see me channeling my inner CJ.

By the way, some of the buildings surrounding the White House itself are pretty impressive, too. I was particularly taken with the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, right next door, where many White House staffers have offices. I thought it looked incredibly beautiful in the darkness. (You can see photos of it in daylight by following the link.)

But of course the star of the show is the White House, and we enjoyed both of our tours immensely. Neither would have happened without Molly's taking time out from her insanely busy schedule to arrange them. Here I am with her outside the West Wing after she showed us around. I am so very proud of her and the work she does. Many, many thanks, Molly!

Wordless Wednesday: streamers

Museums: a favorite way to get exhausted

Washington, D.C. is a city of museums, and I never tire of visiting them. Even those I've seen before.

However, since I figured my trip last month might be the last time I'd be in  our nation's capital for a while, I wanted to take in some new [for me] museums.

Actually, the museum where this lovely sculpture is on the front porch isn't new. But it's been so radically re-designed that I thought it was new at first.

The National Museum of American History is one of those fantastic hodge-podge institutions where you just never know what you're going to find.

Like in their section on food, where they have this impressive display of types of to-go drink covers:

I mean, who even thinks to collect this stuff? But it's really fun to read about and see, all in one exhibit.

One of their biggest galleries deals with transportation, and I was rather taken with this exhibit. It shows logos for all the different car companies that made vehicles early in the history of autos, but are now [almost] completely forgotten (click on the picture to see a larger version, so you can read the names):

The museum also has a variety of smaller exhibits lining their spacious entrance area. Here's one I especially liked:

The signature artifact in the museum is the actual flag that flew at Ft, McHenry and inspired the writing of the national anthem. Yes, the actual flag. It is pretty awesome, literally, since it's gigantic, but also because you know what all it has seen. The exhibit surrounding it is more interesting than you might expect, too, since it not only recounts that particular anthem-inspiring battle, but also the vicissitudes of family and national history that led to the flag's being where it is today.

And as a bonus, the wall behind which the flag is exhibited (no flash allowed in there, obviously, and it was too dimly lit for a good photo) is decorated with this gorgeous "artistic rendering" (I left the gentleman in the frame for scale):

Very cool, eh?

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The other museum that I visited is very, very different from the light, airy, and somewhat quirky American History Museum, but it's not far away, across the Mall.

In spite of hearing for years what a great museum it is, I'd been putting off visiting the Holocaust Memorial Museum. I just wasn't sure I could handle it. But as I've studied and read more and more about World War II, my desire to see what the museum could add to my understanding of this aspect of the conflict overcame my reluctance to experience it this personally.

And I'm so glad it finally did. What an amazing museum! Its exhibits are so rich and full of meaning, insights, and emotions that I wasn't able to come anywhere near seeing even all the World War II-related galleries. Not to mention the exhibitions that illuminate the evils of genocide and prejudice in other eras. It was definitely emotionally draining, but there was also simple museum-fatigue...you can only take in so much information before your brain just overflows, no matter what the subject of the museum. I definitely want to go back someday and see more of this place.

I didn't take too many pictures here. For one thing, even though it was not their busy season (and timed-tickets were not required; this is definitely the time of year to visit if you aren't constrained by school schedules) it was pretty crowded, making it difficult to get clear shots of many of the artifacts and exhibits.

But my attention was also very much taken up with reading the explanatory materials and I only occasionally brought myself out of that verbal mindset and noticed something that I thought would make a good visual. However, I do have a few to share with you.

On the right above is a chart showing the way prisoners in the concentration camps were identified. I think if click on it you can see a large enough version to be able to see the letters, but since they're in German Fraktur script, you might not be able to interpret them (although the link will take you to a reference table). Suffice it to say that there were lots of categories, and cross-categories, of people who suffered in these camps, all meticulously identified.

The photo at the top of this section was taken looking out over the museum lobby through glass in which names of Holocaust victims have been etched. Lovely, but sobering. 

Another very moving pair of spaces, and an imaginative one, from a design standpoint, is the Tower of Faces. I took a picture in the first room, which features photos of Jews who lived in a small town in eastern Poland before the war. 

After you go through this space, there are several exhibits recounting different phases of the Holocaust. Then you go through a similar space with photos of the Jews from this town who survived. I couldn't bring myself to take a picture in that room. 

The museum has some very poignant artifacts from some of the ghettos where the Jews were forced to live, like this gate. I can't remember which town it was from:

And there are recreations and models that help tell the story. The most arresting one, that's almost impossible to look at yet also impossible not to study, is a model of the Auschwitz crematorium (you can see a more panoramic view of it here): 

There was so much to take in! I was particularly interested in this chart. I guess I would have been considered a grade 2 Mischling, as I knew from previous readings about the Nuremberg laws. But to see it so starkly set out was pretty unnerving:

I was pretty exhausted by the time I finished going through the main permanent exhibition at the museum. And I know I probably slighted some of the later parts of it through simple fatigue. But I did feel it was important to record this famous quote from Martin Niemöller, which is posted near the exit:

It pretty nicely sums up the mission of the museum, and what should be the mission of citizens of civilization everywhere, with a special sense of poignance given the recent events in Paris.

An architectural garden

October was a busy month for me. Lots of photos taken and blog posts planned—so when I also got busy upon my return home from various trips, I got really, really behind!

In an attempt to catch up, here's a sampling of some of the gorgeous buildings and interesting statuary on display in our nation's capital. I was there for a librarians' meeting toward the end of the month, but gave myself an extra day or two to enjoy the city, since this was probably my last such conference.

Museum of Natural History's dome

I've always been enchanted by the fabulous structures here, famous and otherwise. Granted, some of the office buildings put out a rather bland institutional vibe, but many more are just fabulous examples of architectural styles old and new. Enjoy!

unidentified building near the Capitol...such great decorative designs

Lincoln Memorial, Reflecting Pool, and WWII Monument,
from the Washington Monument
(that I was not savvy enough to get to visit inside)

Union Station

Taft Memorial, near the Station

fabulous, if unidentified, building near the White House

the Capitol, undergoing some serious external refurbishment works
(wish the retooling would extend to the INside...)

love the circular windows! in this [probably] government building

the Smithsonian "Castle"

this lovely building on the south side of the Mall houses Forest Service offices

statue of Andrew Jackson, near the White House

the impressive new African-American History & Culture museum...under construction

Washington Monument and the new history museum...from inside the Museum of American History

very politically-incorrect statue near the White House...
William Tecumseh Sherman, of all people

the whole picture, at least practically...sunset from my hotel room in Arlington

I did omit one particularly interesting building from these photos, but I'll have a lot to say about that one later.

Next up: the insides of two wonderful museums.

Wordless Wednesday: you just never know...

Top of the World

It's hard not to believe you're nearing the top of the world when the trail stretches before you like this, eh?

We took a breathtaking (figuratively and literally) hike from Cottonwood Pass during our trip to Colorado last month. The road to the pass runs along the north side of Mt. Princeton, a gorgeous massif that's one of our county's dozen 14-ers, and the drive up there and back was a scenic delight in itself. (You can see some pictures from Cottonwood Lake, along that road, in this post.)

Henry learned from a friend at work that this section of the road up to the pass (the side in the Atlantic drainage) is all paved now, so we figured we couldn't lose checking it out. 

Here's a look at the road we traveled...

...while this is the road down into the Pacific drainage, heading towards Crested Butte... (it's not paved but looks well-maintained and eminently driveable; we'll have to take it sometime and see what views it affords to that side of the mountains)...

We did some rough calculations using the GPS feature on my camera, and figured that the unnamed peak we climbed on our hike wasn't much more than 500 or 600 feet above the pass. More fun research with USGS topo maps (your tax dollars at work!) at home confirmed that our "summit" wasabout 12,560. Plenty high enough for old lungs! But not even worth a peak name in the Colorado high country.

Up at the top we found the sign that I'm showing you here on the right. This point just happens to be where these two major trails—the Colorado Trail and the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail—join up for a bit.

We also found not one, but two, nice rock shelters that made it easy to get out of the wind to have our lunch. You can't beat this for a picnic spot! Here's Henry, exploring the shelter that we didn't use, with a rather impressive backdrop. It's hard to estimate distances when the air is so clear, but I think those mountains are probably the ones around Crested Butte.

As always on hikes in the Rockies, the micro-scenery is almost as impressive as the macro. Take a look at the gorgeous veins of quartz in this hunk of granite just sitting beside the trail:

And although most of this countryside is well above treeline, there are still some handsome trees to see now and then...

And there are cultural items to entertain, too. Like the generous collection of amusing stickers covering this warning sign. Hopefully no one drives up here in the dark and needs to be warned away from the edge of the cliff! (Click to enlarge the image if you want to see what people feel is worth leaving here.)

It's a constant wonder to us, how many wonderful trails and how much amazing scenery is within easy driving distance from our Colorado front door!

Midas was here: coins in the treasure chest

Last time I focused on the wonderful mountainsides with flashes of aspen gold that we were treated to in Colorado last month.

But it's hard to say which perspective is more impressive: those panoramic shots or what I want to show you this time—the leaves up close and personal.

down the hill from the River House

They do look like golden coins, don't they?

Since we spent a lot of time working on our cabins, it was fortunate that I didn't have to go far from my front door to be able to watch and admire the golden trees. Even housework and lighting repairs aren't drudgery when you can take a quick break now and then and catch sights like these...

the view from one of our upstairs bedrooms

our own personal golden treasure

early morning sun makes the Schoolhouse's gold more orange

dressing up our new roof in morning sunlight

During our visit, even though it was brief, we could see the color fading. Especially after a couple of windy days. But even if there are only a few leaves left, they are still beautiful.

the last few coins left in the chest

As it happened, less than two weeks after we left, they had a major snowstorm in these mountains. Which probably spelled the end of the very last coins. So we were luckier than we thought!

By the way, I got probably a little carried away with trying to capture the magical movement of these gorgeous bits of biomass. This is the best of the videos that I took in this attempt, if you want to see the aspen actually quaking.