Happy 4th!

Blue skies over Washington, D.C. for the 4th? When was the last time that happened? I thought it was federal law that it MUST rain for the 4th. Not so. This year was beautiful, though a tad bit warm. Dan and I had a perfect curbside spot (literally sitting on the curb) across the street from the National Archives for the parade. Of course, the best part of the parade is the military groups, including the fife and drum corps. A close second this year was a bagpipe group playing, I am not making this up, the Marine Corps Hymn (you know, from the halls of Montezuma).


After the parade and a stop at our favorite frozen yogurt spot to cool off, we spent a little time at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. This year they are featuring Mexico and the pan-Asian cultures of the U.S. So it pretty much is like being home in SoCal. But to keep the theme going we had dinner at a very good Mexican restaurant right in the neighborhood, Rosa Mexicana. See? You can get good Mexican food east of the Mississippi!

Instead of fighting the crowds on the Mall we decided to go to the roof party at our building for the fireworks and that was a great decision.

You can see the Washington Monument on the left and the tower in the center is the Old Post Office Building. After the main fireworks were over we walked to the other side of the roof - the Capital side - and watched at least 20 other displays on the horizon. There are a LOT of fireworks in the DC area! Very, very cool.

Friday is Always a Good Day

It occurred to me that my last post could have been about any place - the SAAM building is beautiful but it doesn't necessarily look uniquely like DC (at least the picture I put in).
Soooo. . . . .
See? We really are in DC!

A nice walk around the Mall late in the afternoon and a quick visit to one of my favorite gardens - right behind the Smithsonian castle. Yes, those are sego palms. I do not know how they keep them alive in the winter.




Real fun was in the evening. We got to see phenom pitcher for the Washington Nationals. We never thought we'd see a nearly sell-out crowd cheering baseball in Washington. But they certainly were.
And to really top it off, I ate a hot dog and it was everything I dreamed of. Aaaahhhh, America's pasttime.

Oh, by the way our absolute favorite form of transportation:

See? We can be green. Although it really is all about the convenience!

They're Baaaaaaack!

OK, I made a promise to certain people (they know who they are) that I would resurrect my blog once we got to DC. To myself I have promised that I would eventually update last year's entries. I have good intentions to keep both promises. We'll see.

Anyway, here we are back at the Newseum Residences on Pennsylvania Avenue across the street from the National Gallery of Art. And it feels a little strange because it feels like we were here just last week when it has actually been over nine months. We've already eaten at two of our favorite places, Jaleo's which is a tapas restaurant a couple of blocks away and Chop't which is a great salad joint across from the arena where the Caps play - again just a few blocks away. Dan has been to the office and I dropped by today to see everyone including my good friend Lisa who now works at the Foundation.

I also spent an hour or so at the National Geographic Headquarters which is just about four blocks from Dan's office where they have a great display about Leonardo daVinci. There was a great daVinci quote, "There are three classes of people: Those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see." I hope to be a person who sees this summer.

This evening we dropped by the Smithsonian American Art Museum which is very close by for "Take 5" their summer jazz concerts. They are in the courtyard of the building which a couple of years ago was covered with this amazing roof and has become one of the really spectacular indoor spaces in DC. The acoustics are wonderful. We sat and listened to a very good quintet and played cribbage. Dan won but only by two points!