DC: Day 5

Day 5: Consisted of John and I's evening adventure to the Phillips Collection and Ethiopian food in the Adams Morgan neighborhood.

The Phillips Collection is a delight and one of my favorite destinations in DC! I can say that if I lived in DC, this is the neighborhood I would want to live in. After the Phillips, John and I walked to get Ehtiopian food. On our way we heard sirens and all sorts of commotion rushing toward us.. all of a sudden the presidential entourage motorcade sped past us! So cool. I like to think Obama waved back to us even though we couldn't see him behind the dark tinted windows.




After a delicious meal of Ehtiopian food and beer we decided to take a walk to find a metro station. Yes we did get slightly lost wandering the lovely sweet smelling streets but eventually we found the longest escalator I have ever seen barreling vertically into the ground to take us home. It was a great evening.

The September Issue

I am so looking forward to this. It looks like great fun!

Because it is Cool!

This wouldn't probably fit into our environment in The Cove but I love this gate! Maybe we should buy a little place in Mexico! Ole!

Twinkling Lights

This needed its own post because I loved it!

The moving walkway that connects the East and West Building of the National Gallery.


As you move through the passage way one is surrounded by a twinkling LED installation by artist Leo Villareal. When you stand or walk in the tunnel, more than 40,000 LEDs sparkle in synchronized and random patterns all around you.


Villareal says the patterns in his art are inspired by nature:
"I'm very interested in rules and underlying structures, which all tie in with the code I'm writing. There are things in nature that inspire me, like wave patterns or natural systems that at first glance appear to be very complex, but when I study them further there are simple rules that govern them. That's what I try to get at in my code -- building simple rules that refer to some of these ideas. Laws are another thing I've been working on lately. I'm not a physicist, but I use rules to create software and in the software I'm able to play with parameters like gravity, velocity, friction. I'm able to use these parameters and access them as an artist and see what compelling things result."


This installation closes November 2009.. I am so glad that I got to see it.

DC Day 3 and Day 4

I should note that each day in DC was spent combining sight seeing and getting Bec ready to move into her new house. I have decided to post all of the "work" pictures in one post so as not to be confusing and instead (as I am sure you have noticed) I post each day by the sight seeing activity we did. Depending on the day, John and I would either hop on the metro in the morning and go to a museum for a few hours and then work at the house in the evening or vice versa. You are smart people, you get the idea.

So Day 3 and Day 4 were spent at the National Gallery and a short walk through the Air and Space Museum. *oh.. also we got to tour Bec's work which was really incredible!

I have been really bad this year in general in not taking lots (or in lots of cases any) pictures.. there is actually not alot documented here but we did alot and saw some amazing things! Good thing it is all up here in my head! I hope my memory holds out..

Rene Magritte, La Condicion Humana, 1933


On the steps of the National gallery


National Gallery East Building interior

DC Day 2

Day Two:
Memorial Day: What better way to recognize Memorial Day when in DC but to go to Arlington Cemetary?

JF and Jackie Kennedy Graves

JA after watching the changing of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It had rained all night and morning and it was humid! Please try not to notice how sweaty this desert girl is.

Beautiful Arlington


Riding the Metro

DC Day 1

DC day 1:
I flew out of Salt Lake at 9am on May 24th and arrived in DC around 5pm. John (who had arrived in DC a few days before to help work on Bec's new house) and Bec picked me up at the airport. We rushed back to the house to drop off my stuff, gathered our jackets and a blanket and headed to the district for the annual PBS Memorial Day concert on the West Lawn of the Capitol. After grabbing picnic fare we sat on the lawn and waited for the concert to start. What a great arrival to DC! It was a beautiful evening. The rain disappeared, the skies were blue and it was cool as we sat in the shadow of our nation's capitol.

The evening in pictures:

I have disappeared from myself

gone gone diggity gone.

This is how I feel about any sort of motivation for updating the blog. gone. Which really is too bad because I am quite sure that I have had lots of interesting things to say that are now fleeting glimpses of a moment and now.. gone. Summer has been beautiful so far and very busy between a short trip, gardening, walks in the cove, watching the rare June rain, lots of work at the museum, befriending a wild cotton tail rabbit named Phyllis (I have bribed her with lots of yummy farm share lettuce and chard), always continued research and of course the one time a year that I am allowed to cuddle in bed and read historical fiction! Every time I think about updating you, my poor neglected blog, I decide that instead I should get a few minutes of reading in, and I do have the best intentions of blogging later, then an hour or two goes by and I have to move onto something else. Do you see how busy I am?!

My summer is disappearing into myself.. I am trying to absorb every minute of it which unfortunately doesn't always mean having the time to document. I would rather remember scents, feelings and sensations.. you just can't get that out of a photograph!

Alas, I really will try to work on the blog. I still need to show you the house- before and the afters (although there is still a lot of work to be done), as well as summer trips and fun.

I'll think about it, I really will