A few weeks ago (already - my how time flies) I spent a week in the Washington DC area. I was there for training, but I did have an afternoon to myself, so I thought I'd go adventuring.
I was staying in a town called Reston. It seemed to be mostly full of upmarket retaurants, clothing stores, and chic household stores. Not really my kind of place at all, except for a craft store that was located within the hotel I was staying at. Can't remember the name of it, but it had examples of craft from all over the country - everything from pottery and woodwork, to glass, jewellery and toys. You all would have loved it - especially Mum; the pottery was gorgeous.
So anyway, by "adventuring" I mean that I caught a bus and a train to downtown Washington DC and then did lots of walking. I suppose one really ought to visit a nation's capital at some stage.
I wanted to go to the Smithsonian. You may have heard of it, it's the warehouse for US history and innovation. I've long wanted to go to the Smithsonian, which is one of the world's great collections of stuff. And it's free!
What I didn't realise until I did my research is that it's actually made up of six or seven (eight, nine, ten?) individual museums spread over the DC area. Fortunately, there's a whole bunch of them along one street, so that's where I headed. I'm going to apologise right now for the photos; I got distracted... plus which I had our small camera, which is on its last legs.
So, here it is. The National Museum of American History. Pretty ugly from the ouside, but quite a treasure trove on the inside. I was looking for an exhibition about pop-up books, but I must have mis-read or something, because it wasn't there. Here's what I saw (that I remember) instead:
- Dorothy's (from the Wizard of Oz) red shoes,
- Kermit the Frog from 1969, and the version of him that preceded the one we know (it was a lumpy, pale green, almost frog-like thing, and really quite ugly),
- Dresses that many of the first ladies (right back to the 1700's) had worn,
- Three steam engines, and I mean whole steam engines, including a very early one that had a wooden barrel part where the steam would collect and build pressure,
- Lots of cultural stuff that I didn't recognise or understand,
- The very first US gun boat (apparently it was sunk by the British on its maiden voyage),
- A C3PO (from Star Wars) costume,
- Old musical instruments, and
- The ENTIRE kitchen of a much beloved chef named Julia Childs, who is credited with bringing French cooking methods to the US in the 1950's (I think) and who is a cultural icon. When I say "entire kitchen", I mean just that; they had her counters, her cupboards, her windows, her stove, her pots and pans (she was very fond of copper, and I'm jealous) and her kitchen table. I would be very happy to have a kitchen like that, although the counters would have been too high for me - she was over six feet tall and had the counters built to suit.
I think the most moving thing I saw was a collection of African American art and artifacts belonging to a couple called the Kinseys. The collection included bills of sale for slaves, letters about slaves who had been sold or murdered, and insurance documents for slaves. It was very sobering to see a written history of human trafficking. That was a very quiet gallery.
Next, I wandered past huge monumental buildings to the Museum of Contemporary Art. On my way I spotted a sculpture garden, so I took a bit of a wander through that, too.
This is called Spider, strangely enough, by a woman named Louise Bourgeois. I'm not sure why, but I quite liked it.
At the Museum of Modern Art, I was lucky enough to see an exhibition of Gaugin paintings. He's the one who painted all those beautful Tahitian women. What I didn't know is that he also sculpted (mostly wood) and made prints.
I suspect I would have taken a serious disliking to him had I ever met him, but my god those paintings were amazing. Think of any Pacific Islander woman you've met - not only did he capture the way they look, but he somehow also managed to capture an essence. What a wonderful thing to see in real life paintings that I've only ever seen photos of. It changes everything.
I wandered around that museum for a bit, marvelled at a Picasso, was amazed by a series of Georgia O'Keefe paintings, and then crossed the road to the Museum of Art.
This museum had galleries, upon galleries, upon GALLERIES of paintings from British and American painters, all of them before what is called Modern Art. It was quite near closing time, so I didn't really wander anywhere. I did take a photo or two, though, just to give you an idea of the scale of the place.
There were three or four areas like this... and that was just in one wing of the museum. It was all a bit overwhelming, really, but I did notice they had lovely wide floorboards in the galleries!
By the time I got to the Museum of Natural History I was pretty well buggered, so after I wandered through an exhibition of orchids I stopped for a coffee and a biscuit. Then I went to the gemstone gallery (they had lots of stuffed animals, too, but I wasn't really interested in them - have you ever noticed how they always seem a bit worn around the edges with loose eyes and bits of escaping stuffing?)
I think I could have spent hours in the gemstone gallery. The first thing you see is the Hope Diamond, which is apparently quite a big deal. My response? Meh. There was much more interesting stuff to be seen.
They claim to have one of the best gemstone collections in the world, and I believe them. I think they probably have one of everything in its raw state, and one of everything in its polished state. There's no way I can describe it all, but I'll let you know I saw opals from Australia and Idaho, raw asbestos, gold nuggets, rubies, sapphires, topaz, sapphires, turquoise, and emeralds.
I also saw quite a few examples of fluorite. When Daniel and I got married, we spent a few days in southern Illinois and stayed in a wee town called Cave-In-Rock. While we were there, we collected a few bits of the Illinois state rock, which just happens to be - you guessed it - fluorite (only they call it fluorospar there). And they just happened to have this absolutely ginormous (I'm going to say 15 kilo) example from - you guessed it - Cave-In-Rock. Hah!
I was all done in after that, so I headed back to the train station along "the mall". I think its official title is The Mall of America, and it has a lot of monuments along it. But I was too tired for any more exploring and it was getting dark, so I called it quits.
This is the Smithsonian administration building as seen from across "the mall" on a gloomy spring evening.
And this, this is why I am so glad I don't live in a major city anymore:
It was a good experience, and I'd go back for the museums, but I was very glad to get back to Boise.
