To Williamsburg!  I haven't been here since I was in fifth grade.  What I remember most was that we came with no coats (because it was late spring) and that my father had to shell out for coats for all of us because it was so cold.  I guess I'm cursed because the weather was cold and rainy again this time.  But occasionally, as occurred this entire trip, the sun came out and thus my camera.  Just remember the good parts right?  Williamsburg is one mile long and three quarters of a mile wide.  I'm not sure how we walked ten miles, but we did.   How I loved the theater of it all!  Thank you to all the actor/guides/historians/interpreters.  I loved hearing the history and the back and forth between you and your audience.  Don't miss the print shop.  It is the best stop in the whole place.  The actor/printer/guide there was terrific!  He never stopped asking questions or talking...and we stayed quite awhile.  I was impressed.  The wig shop was right up there in my favorites.  Where did the phrase "powder room" come from?  It was where the men went to powder their wigs.  Ugh, can you imagine?  Puff, puff, puff color all over your wig, shoulders and clothes.  Some of those wigs were extreme and depending on what they were made of were very expensive.  So I guess things haven't changed much as far as how much we will spend to fit in and look good.  I loved the reconstruction of the capital, which was our first stop.  Could I have voted back then?  No.  In fact no one in the whole room of approximately 50 people met the criteria.  And yet these wealthy privileged people were willing to give all that up, give their lives, because their rights were being taken away.  This is our heritage.  Don't let anyone take your rights away.  Also really enjoyed the Milliners shop and the Governor's Palace gardens.  Also don't miss the museum.  It was a highlight for me.  It looks pretty small, but most of it is underground and just fantastic.  The area upstairs dedicated to information about the insane asylum was tortuous.  But I admit I was surprised at the compassion evident in the doctor's notes.  In the actual art museum the paintings displayed were a highlight because they focused on the artist, not the sitter.  Yeeeesssss!  Loved it.  Very nice little town too by the way and school is over so it was pretty quiet.  Back to my brushes.

"I desire that you remember the ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors."  - Abigail Adams

We started the day with news of a sinkhole on our route to Mount Vernon.  Luckily it was on the other side of the boulevard/parkway and didn't slow us down.  We did take an alternate route back though.  I visited there when I was about six years old and looked forward to sharing the experience with my partner.  It was again cold and spitting rain on and off.  Par for the course at this point.  We got there early to avoid crowds and my experience is that it is the best time to go.  There were hardly any lines, but when we left, lines were all we could see.  Mount Vernon looks totally different from when I saw it as a child.  The color of the home is not creamy white anymore as you can see from the photos.  Apparently, this is the color Washington preferred.  If you click on the photo you can read about his choice of local sand.  I have to say it was rather clever, achieving an excellent stone appearance.  It must have been a constant challenge though as it seems to wear off rather quickly now.  Perhaps it is a new environmental challenge?  I don't know.  Really enjoyed the day and the grounds.  The foxgloves were in beautiful bloom and I enjoyed the gardens tremendously.  The green room, his favorite room in the house, well...nice to know he appreciated color.  But the view is spectacular!  Hard to Imagine that he was willing to give up all that wealth and stature for the birth of this nation.  I picked up some heirloom seeds from the garden to give to my friend back home.  It is the only souvenir I purchased the entire trip.  Wonderful meal with friends that evening and met another watercolor artist too!  Good times.  Back to my brushes.  

"Bad seed is a robbery of the first kind; for your pocketbook not only suffers by it, but your preparations are lost and a season passes away unimproved."  - George Washington

I have had Gettysburg on my list of things to see for some time and finally that was realized.  I even entered a show just for the excuse of going, but didn't get in.  (I told you I get decline letters too.)  So, the day was cold and spitting rain as usual.  I was really impressed with the new facility.  It was so clean and well run.  We were there fairly early to miss the crowds.  Good planning.  We started with a tour of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's home.  It backs up to the battlefield and has a beautiful view.  Informative and polite guides, but the opportunity to just walk around was quite pleasant despite the weather.  My favorite area started with the barn.  I loved getting in the barn as I had seen this style when we drove into this part of the country.  The barns back home don't look like this, so it was interesting to actually see the difference up close. Apparently Dwight and Mamie worked really hard to pick the right color. Really?  Army institutional green?  As a military kid, I can't count how many buildings I've been in that were this color.  I have to say if I had been given the opportunity to redo a house from the ground up, I would have made the ceilings higher.  A little stifling, though par for the times.  Perhaps they were looking for something more...cozy?  My favorite part was the linen closet.  Yes, Mamie's favorite color was pink but it was the organization that I admired.  The phones were fantastic and everyone had their own number.  Ike's "big" kitchen looks functional (he liked to cook).  I wonder what his apron looked like?  And this little vignette caught my attention and raised an eyebrow.  Really?  With the hairbrushes?  I'm still pondering that scene today.   It poured down rain as we got on the shuttle to leave.  Next was the battlefield and after the first stop on the tour it quit raining and the sun came out.  Hooray!  We went through town as well, but I would have liked to stay longer.  We enjoyed our thoughtful guide who stopped by the Arkansas monument just so we could take photos.  Although the close proximity of things were noted, I couldn't help but compare it to Vicksburg.  The proximity of combat in Vicksburg was really close; not a whole valley.  It was more like combat with the house across the street.  Close.  Really close.  It started raining again and we headed back to have dinner with friends at Passion Fish in Reston.  A delightful end to the day.  Back to my brushes.  

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."  - Dwight D. Eisenhower

After seeing everything we planned at the National Museum of Art, East and West, we headed to the Archives to finish the day.  We also walked over to take photos of the White House before catching the metro.  Only walked 11 miles that day.  Just a good stretch of the legs, but the following day was our planned monument walk.  It was overcast and again around 50 degrees which was actually pretty good for the excursion, but again it was misty.  Now let me say that I have done this before, but my partner had not, so it was new for one of us.  We started at the Washington Monument and proceeded in order to the World War II Memorial, the Korean War Veterans Memorial (my personal favorite), the Lincoln Memorial, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial before we stopped and had a coke.  Then we proceeded to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, then the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial.  This is where the sun came out.  Unfortunately, the pump house had flooded so none of the fountains were running.  I hope that is fixed soon, but I can appreciate the quiet.  I believe you can see the flooding in the photo of the Jefferson Memorial which was the last stop (click on the photo to make it larger).  The walkway around the edge of the water was flooded, so you had to take the long way around.  Plus they are working on the Jefferson Memorial, so once you get up those stairs the breeze you expected is shuttered off.  Disappointing.  Then we headed for the Air and Space Museum.  We got a hot dog and a drink before catching the show at the planetarium.  I'm not sure the heavens would be the same without Neil deGrasse Tyson's voice; such a pleasure.  The museum was filled to the brim with students, and almost half of the museum was shut down while they add on to one side of the building.  And to those that read my blog locally - yes, that is Louise Thaden in that photo!  I'm pleased that her home in Bentonville was saved, (even though it is still dismantled at this point).  And it wouldn't have been saved at all without the uproar from the public.  Who are we without our history?  We had a little over an hour before the museums closed, so we popped into the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery to see the exhibit the Empresses of China's Forbidden City.  We really had to move fast, so I took lots of photos to peruse later.  Good thing too because straight up five they rounded everyone up like cattle and shooed us out the door in a mob.  If they had tried to brand me on the way out I wouldn't have been surprised.  Although if they had handed me a bottle of opioids I wouldn't have been surprised either; it is the Sackler after all.  But I hold nothing against the artists who's work I saw and admired.  The stitching was exquisite.  After that we perused the gardens at the castle which were just beautiful and finished the day by walking down the mall to the Capitol and back before jumping on the metro.  A full day to be sure.  Back to my brushes.  

​"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."  - Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Another stop on our itinerary was to visit the National Museum of Art.  The last time I was there I did ask the staff to explain why there were no watercolors in the museum save one.  ONE.  (Okay, I'll stretch and say two, but the second was actually mixed media, so - just no.)  Please - they didn't even know there was one.  Ugh.   So you can imagine how thrilled I was with the current exhibition on display downstairs.  Don't give up, you'll find it eventually.  It's past the restaurant, no...past the sculptures...no, past those prints, beyond the back of the back of the furniture...Hooray, there it is!  The reward is a wonderful collection of American Pre-Raphaelite watercolors featuring mostly landscapes and florals from the hands of the PRB.  I loved the work.  What joyful color!  "...a dazzling brilliance, giving their works an intensity that transcends the decorative."  I couldn't agree more.  They also broadened "the traditional concept of still life..." for which I send my thanks into the ether, and "Their dedication to the medium proved to be an important catalyst for the founding of the American Watercolor Society in 1866."  I highly recommend everyone see this well-lit exhibit of small works.  Now, if I could just find the exhibit of watercolors by women?  Maybe back here somewhere around that corner?  Back to my brushes.  


"The seed of revolution is repression."  - Woodrow Wilson

I have been changing my horizon line this May. Yes, I have been traveling and experiencing history along the way.  History becomes more "real" when you physically experience the place you have read about your whole life.  So I will share a few highlights.  Let me start with the scenery of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  Truth - looks a lot like home.  I found that to be the case everywhere we went.  Save the buildings I could be anywhere around my part of the state of Arkansas.  The biggest difference was the weather.  I left a sunny 80 degree environment and exchanged it for rain and 50 degrees.  Every time the sun came out I took photos.  So, it looks like that is what I experienced, but far from it.  It was rainy, cold and overcast 95% of the time.  Suboptimal.  We stopped in Staunton, Virginia, to see  Woodrow Wilson's birthplace and museum.  I highly recommend you stop in Staunton.  It is so picturesque!  I wish I had scheduled more time to be there because it was just lovely.  This is the view out of the back of the home.  As you can see it sits on a hill.  The front of the home sat right on a wagon trail so the back of the home is the architecturally significant part of the building.  I learned a lot from the museum and it brought home that although times change, too many problems remain the same.  Rather discouraging actually.  On an up note, my hats off to the friendliest museum staff I've ever run across.   They got us tucked into the last tour and gave us plenty of time in the actual museum before they closed.  Enough for now.  Back to my brushes.  

"You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand."  - Woodrow Wilson

Our last day in the city and it was overcast, but not raining.  Quite pleasant actually.  We started the day at the Neue Gallery.  We got there early and were rewarded by being the second couple in the building.  Unlike the couple in front of us, we decided to start with the portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer.  How fortunate we were to start there.  We and the guards were the only ones in the room for almost ten minutes.  Amazing!  We had the opportunity to look from all angles in the room and to sit and contemplate all the other paintings in the room as well.  We also had the little hand held devices to give us further insights.  We moved on when other people started entering.  I really enjoyed the artful jewelry and the sketches upstairs.  The portrait exhibit upstairs was interesting as well, so don't miss it.  I picked up a book in the gift shop for the children to enjoy.  After that it was just a hop, skip, and a jump to the Met.  We didn't go in as we have been through it many times and as I said in an earlier post, wanted to avoid repeats.  But, we did sit on the steps out front and have some Nathan's hot dogs and a coke.  In fact, we went back for seconds.  We headed for the Frick Collection, but many of the streets were closed due to a parade.  How wonderful!  I've never seen a parade in NY.  We hung out for awhile enjoying the excitement.  Apparently they have celebrated Greek Independence Day with a parade in NYC since 1938!  Fantastic!  And this is where I picked up my one and only souvenir - A great water bottle!   We strolled on down to see the Frick Collection and I am glad we did.  I've seen these paintings in photos since I was a child, and it was a real treat to see them up close and personal.  I liked seeing them in a room setting.  Why do they seem more alive in that setting?  The most tantalizing was the small pastel by Edgar Degas by the stairs.  Frick did not like pastels but he kept this one by his desk they said.  I almost laughed out loud.  How telling.  Anyway, as we left we noted that the parade was still going on.  Wow!  The weather had gotten gloomier and we headed back to our hotel and then on to eat dinner.  Got this final shot of the Chrysler building just outside Grand Central.  Can't wait to see this city again!  Back to my brushes.  

​"We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment."  - Hilaire Belloc