While in DC, I dined at some excellent restaurants and drank at superlative bars: Afghania, The Hamilton, Off the Record at the Hay Adams, Round Robin at the Willard Hotel, and others I neglected to take note of.
Washington National Cathedral on a gray drizzly Sunday morning.
A brief snippet of post-service organ music, along with some idle worshippers.
The bells! The bells! My search for Quasimodo proved fruitless.
The Women’s Viet Nam Memorial.The Korean Conflict Memorial.Franklin and Fala.A UN person.I bet you don’t have a single spoon warmer in your mansion. The White House has them in abundance.This plane was the first trainer for the Tuskegee Airmen. It is at the National African American Museum of History and Culture.A bit of the beauty that is the Library of Congress.This is how people eat and drink in Washington.
I write this as I wing my way home from a most excellent adventure in Washington, DC. I stayed with my friends and wonderful hosts, Andrew and Michelle, for 3 days, then moved to a hotel for 3.
As most of us know, Washington has one weather mode, muggy, with two variants, hot and cool. Lucky for me, this visit was in the muggy and cool variant. It was drizzly rain for most of my visit, which may sound unfortunate at first. However, with an umbrella or light rain jacket, it proved quite comfortable.
One dangerous result of the rain, though, was the extremely slick sidewalks. All the granite and red bricks seem benign when dry, but turn treacherous when wet. Pedestrians beware.
Washington’s public transit agency, WMATA, runs superb bus and rail service throughout the city. It was very convenient, clean, safe and usually on time. Using public transit is way better than driving a rental.
First stop, right off the plane, the National Air & Space Museum at Dulles. Excellent as always, crammed full of planes.
This shuttle is so huge when you get up close. This one spent 365 days in space. I appreciated the way the curators left it looking worn and beat up; it shows that the shuttles were real work horses.This P-40 has a scary shark face to frighten the enemies.Elegant Concorde! Such a shame she no longer flies.Pretty DC-3 all shiny and clean! Even the propellers have a mirror finish. The airline opted for this look to save the weight and cost of paint.
