We started the day by getting up early and going for a 3.2 mile jog from our hotel to the Mall, around half of the Mall, and then back to our hotel. Then we raced to shower and pack and walk to the Willard for the National Park Foundation breakfast.Morning light on the WWII memorial during our jog.A gingerbread rendition of The Willard, where we did all of our National Park Foundation activities.
We visited with more lovely parks people at breakfast and listened to some great talks about what the National Parks Foundation is accomplishing. I feel committed for life. The national parks are our nation’s greatest treasures (in my opinion) and I am thrilled to support them in any way. The only caveat to the parks is the stolen land from indigenous people, and as far as I can tell the parks are honestly trying to confront that past.
Our secretary of the interior is of native descent and I have seen multiple rangers of native heritage at the parks this past year, including the one featured at the Christmas tree lighting the night before. Most importantly, the parks do an incredible job preserving and honoring the ecological and cultural aspects of our land, and that excellent stewardship serves all cultures. I love the parks and was so happy to hear the report at breakfast about the ways in which our parks are thriving.
After breakfast Abe dropped off the gift the parks gave us at the hotel while I ordered coffee two blocks from the hotel.
Then we power-walked through three Smithsonian museums: The Museum of American History, the Museum of Natural History, and the National Gallery.
We both got emotional seeing the Star-Spangled Banner. The display was excellent.At the natural history museum we were enamored with the evolution section. When we were LDS neither of us knew how to make sense of evolution and did not give it much thought. It was amazing to see how humans evolved and what different human species have looked like throughout time. Some of my favorite fossils were of ancient human species that showed evidence of a crocodile bite, a child attacked by an eagle (early human species were so small that they were the dimension of prey), and one fossil showing a blow to the head that withered the left arm and meant that the human survived into mid- 30’s early 40’s because of the care of his family. Very sad stories but so incredible that these lives are recorded through bone and that we can see them today!There was a program that changed our faces into an early human species of our choice. Abe chose Neanderthal because both of us have abnormal amounts of Neanderthal in our genes.At the National Gallery.I love Caillebotte! He might be my favorite impressionist because I love how graphic AND fluid he is. Most of all I love the quality of the light in his paintings. It always is soft and beautiful.I wrote an essay on this for a final in college. I don’t know what I wrote but after being a mom I know I see this differently! The man is physically working by pulling those oars, but the mom is physically working to keep that squirming baby safely in the boat. I know this is supposed to be a serene moment for this family, but I am not sure these people look fully relaxed. It is a very American impressionist painting. The French impressionists show people fully relaxed, laughing, having fun, or frolicking on swings or in a field, but Mary Cassatt is showing a situation where work and tension seem to weave their way into the vacation. It seems very east coast if you ask me. Also the fact that the perspective is from the boat itself seems very bravura technique-wise. Now I want to research this painting because there is no way Cassatt could have painted this in the boat, right?! Maybe she sketched it from the boat. If she painted this in the boat (as the picture suggests) I am floored. Also the boat itself might be my favorite part of the painting. I guess I am a sucker for strong lines in the middle of paintings that feature light.
Then we walked as fast as we could to the start of our walking tour. By the time our tour began we had already walked about ten miles that day. On our walking tour we learned so much from the ranger!
We learned about Marian Anderson singing three times on these steps and how the memorial neglected to mention Lincoln’s role as the great emancipator. The inscription only talks about his role as the savior of the union, but his other greatest accomplishment was the emancipation of slaves. Also: Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the Daughters of the American Revolution when that group would not allow Marian Anderson to sing for them because she was black. FDR said she could sing from the top of the Washington Memorial if she wanted, and Eleanor Roosevelt arranged for her to sing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1939. It was a beautiful moment of American unity while Hitler was ascendant across the pond. She sang here twice more in her life, the third time being the day of Dr. King’s I Have a Dream speech.The inscription is the phrase of a golfing buddy of the architect of the memorial. Our group ran into the grandson of the architect during the tour!The architect of the Vietnam Memorial, Maya Lin, did not want these sculptures near the wall because in her opinion they romanticize war. She was a Yale student when her design was chosen. Because she was Asian American a lot of bad things were said about her during the construction of the memorial and many people did not understand what she was trying to do with her design. Now everyone understands how brilliant and profound this memorial is, but when it was going up people really did not understand. We went to a restaurant called “Immigrant Food” for dinner. It is a restaurant honoring immigrants and refugees, and it tries to provide pathways for immigrant and refugee chefs to bridge their careers in the U.S.. The food was amazing.We were in the Salt Lake airport in the hallway between terminals when I took this picture at 11:59pm. I think this might be a record for me! Our flights were amazingly smooth.
This trip was an absolute highlight for Abe and me. Every minute was a delight. We are so grateful to Tom and Suzanne who made it possible to go, and we are grateful to the National Parks Foundation for inviting us out. It was so great to get back home to our children, who light up our lives. But we did have the greatest time in DC, and I will never forget this trip!!
