Mr. Bones Goes to Washington

A Very Unofficial Visit

The National Mall, Looking East from the Lincoln Memorial

Part 1: Walking in Washington

When she was in her late teens, my mom worked in the Pentagon. A small-town Kansas girl, she spoke of the Pentagon as if it was a city in itself. I grew up on the West Coast, and to me Washington seemed as far away as the moon. I loved to hear the stories of it and remember asking mom to tell how the streets in Washington were arranged and listening as she explained that the east and west streets are letters, the north and south streets are numbers and the diagonal streets are named after the states, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut. Why a young boy would find this fascinating, I can't tell you. But I remember asking to hear about it again and again.

I thought about that as the cab pulled away from Reagan National Airport on an overcast Friday morning. In ten minutes I was stepping out at my hotel on Northeast E Street. I'd been to Washington a couple of times before, but only for a few hours each time. I checked into the hotel, tucked my bags into my room, grabbed the camera and my umbrella and bounded out onto E Street. Just to the south of me, rising over the trees was the dome of the Capitol Building, imposing, huge and impressive even though "Capitol Hill" only consists of a slight rise in the landscape.  Hiking over to stand on the west side of it, I looked down the National Mall, a long strip of grass with trees at the edges but with a feeling of wide open space. Two miles away at the west end is the Lincoln Memorial, somber and stately. Between them rises the Washington Monument with its inspiring height and clean lines like a square tapered needle. To the north of the Monument, in a branch of the Mall like the leg of an offset T is the White House.
The United States Capitol Surrounding the Mall are monuments and museums, including several of the many Smithsonian facilities.  These include the National Archives, The National Botanical Gardens, the National Sculpture Garden, the National Art Galleries and the National Museum of the American Indian. In fact there's so much National Stuff that I can't begin to remember it all.

On the National Mall, there are a lot of choices of where to go and what to see. There are also several things you're going to see whether you want to or not, and the primary one is people. People in groups, people in bunches, people in pairs, people by themselves. People by the busload, literally. Many, many busloads.
A Very Small Group

The second thing you'll notice is cops. Cops to the left, cops to the right, cops before and behind. Not that I'm complaining, this area needs good security. Police cars are often parked two or three per intersection, each on a different corner which obviously is to have a variety of vantage points. If you think I'm exaggerating the number of cops, wait till you go there. And be glad this isn't some country where it would be soldiers instead of the police.

Then there are the joggers. I'm certain that The National Mall in Washington DC must have the highest per capita percentage of joggers of anywhere in the world. Looking good is a prime asset in this city and a lot of people are working hard at it. People dress well. You see very few blue jeans except on tourists, construction workers, delivery men and itinerant webmaster-writer-photographers. Identification badges abound. I felt like I needed one so I wouldn't be so conspicuous. Of course with my camera, camera gear and ball cap it might have taken more than an ID badge and a different pair of pants for me to blend in. I don't think I have that "I'm one of the movers and shakers of the free world" sort of look.

Gone are the days of wandering into the visitor's gallery of the House of Representatives or the Senate.
The National Conservatory and Capitol Dome Now you have to stand in line, show ID and get a ticket, then come back at your assigned time and wait in another line to be escorted in after a bag and metal-detector check. I understand and deplore the reasons for this, but it doesn't make me happy. I chose to forgo the lines and walk west down the south side of the Mall. The Botanical Garden is the first thing I came to, and it's closed for renovation. But the conservatory was open so I went in.

My concept of a conservatory comes from the game of Clue we played when I was a kid, where Col. Mustard did the dirty crime with the lead pipe. But in actuality a conservatory is a greenhouse and like every other facility on the National Mall, this is a very fine one. Rooms lead to rooms taking you through the flora of the Amazon, the deserts,
Orchids in the National Conservatory temperate zones. When I went into the relatively small orchid room, it was like stepping into a different world. If there is anything more delicate, varied and incredibly beautiful than orchids, I can't imagine what it would be. People ran through the room barely giving a glance left or right and hurried into the next chamber. I stood in practically the same spot for the first 10 minutes and the longer I stood the more I discovered. Soon I was trading "look at that one" discoveries with the two other people who'd paused to actually look. The gloomy skies frowned down on us through the greenhouse glass, but the tropical orchids smiled.

When I emerged from the Conservatory, I continued west. The next building down is the Museum of the American Indian, a tall limestone structure that's rough in texture and buff in color. As someone with a highly developed sense of what's good design and what's and poor design, I often look askance at modern architecture. This building is great. The overhung east roof, the rough stone surface and the undulating outer walls were designed to recall the cliffs of the great Southwestern rock country and do exactly that.
The National Museum of the American Indian Inside, I found a tasteful, informative, proud and very inspiring collection and presentation, a mix of ancient and contemporary. Make sure you plan plenty of time when you get to this museum.

As I left the Indian Museum, the afternoon was waning and the mist falling. I squished my way across the Mall to the north side and found myself at the foot of the steps leading up to the National Gallery of Art (West Building). I walked up the steps, let the guard poke around in my camera bag then wandered into the huge gallery. It's everything an art gallery should be--hushed and dim with room opening into room filled with paintings and sculptures.
Daniel in the Lion's Den by Peter Paul Rubens
national gallery of art It's the kind of place where you wonder if it's possible to get lost and locked in at night. I wandered along and found myself staring at a wall full of Peter Paul Rubin's' paintings, just hanging there for anyone to put their greasy fingers on if they so dared. From there I went into another room filled with works by Flemish masters, but none that had names I recognized. Then another room of them, then another. I have to confess that it doesn't take me too long before I'm "museumed out", no matter what the subject matter is. And even more, I'm so uneducated in art that after I've seen a couple of hundred paintings by Flemish masters they all start to look the same. To me that is. Your more tasteful eye probably finds this point of view ridiculous. Anyway, it was getting close to closing time, so I walked back to the hotel.

With my shoes off and my feet up, I contemplated that fact that even if you equip a hotel room with a big-screen tv, it's still a hotel room and while some are better than others, they all share the same cold, no-personality feeling. There must be an exception to that, I just can't think of one. After while I put on my good shoes, washed my face and, collecting my coat and umbrella, headed out again.

One of the inducements for me to make a trip to Washington was that a couple of friends of mine were exhibiting their work at the Smithsonian Craft Show, which is the most prestigious craft show in the United States.
The National Building Museum I wanted to see the show and I wanted to see them, sisters from Latvia who both married guys from New Jersey. From my hotel it was about six blocks to the show, so I walked over to the National Building Museum where it was being held. Completed in 1887, the building is a massive brick structure with a band of terra cotta bas relief circling the entire structure, showing scenes from the Civil War. Inside, the craft fair lived up to its reputation. My friends Daiga and Sarmite had a corner booth and were  selling a lot of coats. You won't find these coats at your local department store, no matter how pretentious it may be. They're designed and hand made by Daiga and Sarmite and they're absolutely gorgeous.

After the show ended, we walked down to NW 7th Street to a Spanish tapas restaurant and had dinner while we caught up on the last couple of years. The food was good and the company was better. Of course they had to work the next day, so after dinner they caught a cab to their hotel and I walked back to mine. My day had started at 4am and it was certainly time to call it quits.

Wearable Art by Sarmite and Daiga