Heat, Heat, Heat.....

Hello Blog-Followers!
It's been a while!! Lots to tell you, not so much adventurous but more travelogue......While trying to beat the above 100 degree temps this last week...hard to do when you have to walk A LOT next to building and sidewalks that reflect the heat! Think I cooked myself like a pizza sitting outside the Capitol today!!

The week of June 28-July 2nd was rather mundane- working everyday and exploring the city....I poked around Georgetown-dangerously expensive and beautiful place....On another day, I traveled by metro to Pentagon City where the most wonderous of malls lives....again...dangerously expensive....I'm REALLY good at window shopping! :-) The week passed rather slow at work as my supervisor was gone to Denver and J had just returned from her Taiwan trip-so she was catching up and I was waiting for them to approve the work I'd done...

One cool museum moment that week- I got to go visit one of the Photography curators who was SUPER nice and let me sift through drawers of "cartes de visite" which I learned were the calling cards of the 1800's...you had your picture taken and printed on heavy cardstock and you would leave that when calling upon friends or swap with friends....our students do that today with wallet sized school pictures!! I found two beautiful ones to use with my project, but then she pulled out the Matthew Brady collection and I found something even better!! It was VERY cool to "play" with ACTUAL Civil War era photographs (even touched several portraits of Gen. Custer!!).

And then Saturday morning I woke up to zoom to the airport to get my big boy, Xan!!! I was SO excited to see his cute face coming from his gate!! We ran to the apartment and then zoomed back out eat lunch at Zatinya's and chill out in the Portrait Gallery. It closed at 7:00, so we decided to go ahead and do a monument walk.....LONG night, but very cool! We started at the Washington Monument and then headed over to see the World War II memorial- really neat and made me think of my granddaddy (who flew B-24's) and my Benj (who is obsessed with all things WWII). Then we headed to the Lincoln memorial...with a lot of grumbling on my part....not my favorite prez and not sure why his monument looks like a Greek god's......but that's another story for later and those of you who know me already KNOW that story! :-) But....as Xan pointed out....it did give a GREAT view of the Washington Monument and the reflecting pool as we sat on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial....we waited for sunset which seemed to take FOREVER and then got to see the 3 Marine 1's flying over-one of which contained the president! That was a pretty cool moment. Then we headed over to see the Vietnam Wall- powerful- and doubled back to see the Korean War memorial. Due to it being the 4th , LOTS of fencing was up, so we had to walk REALLY far around to get back to a place to cross over to the Tidal Basin.....and then we walked FOREVER, IN THE DARK, UNDER LOW HANGING TREES, WITH NO RAILING BY THE FOREVER HIGH EDGE ABOVE THE WATER.....Not a pleasant walk at night....and then we got to the place Xan was waiting to see...the FDR Memorial- his favorite president.....Thank you Auburn City Schools and thank you AP History classes....that child did NOT stop talking about FDR from the minute we got there and it was really quite fun, interesting, and I learned a LOT about FDR....more than I ever learned in any high school or college class...I was duly impressed...Finally we headed out to see my favorite guy, T.J.- I LOVE Thomas Jefferson and his memorial is my favorite....So we ended the evening before the 4th reading the words of the Declaration....after walking another mile to our metro, we were WIPED OUT! Think we walked almost 6 miles that night!

The next day we made a trip to the cathedral and then left to stay overnight with my supervisor in Maryland. We ate FAB Maryland crab cakes and spent the evening of the 4th watching the fireworks over Annapolis Harbor at the Chesapeake Bay...it was what I always imagined an East Coast 4th to be! AWESOME!

This week Xan has poked all around the different Smithsonian Museums, and I've joined him when I could! Today we toured the Capitol and it was BEAUTIFUL!!! Tomorrow we head out for a campus tour of Georgetown and a visit to the Holocaust Museum and then a campus tour of Catholic University on Friday morning. We are going to try to hit the Hirschorn Sculpture Museum sometime on Friday, but that is my last work day and the sweet people I work with are taking me to lunch!

This trip has FLOWN!! There have been highs and lows, craziness, and yes...even boredom....being by yourself is HARD sometimes!! :-) But I've loved every minute of my adventure!! My supervisor is planning a trip to Alabama in the spring to visit my classroom to see my lesson plan in action! I am hoping this is the start of a long and fruitful relationship with the Smithsonian....you never know when I might come back to D.C.!! The most crazy, fun, awe-inspiring city in the U.S.