DC 2018, part one

 We kicked off the summertime with a home-and-home series with Claire and Peter's family and also Colleen. 

Brooke gave a lesson in acrylic paint 

Then the following week Dad and the older girls traveled to DC 

We braved the heat to tour the tidal basin. Nice to meet you, Founding Father George Mason, the strongest abolitionist among the Virginia Fathers. 

By the time we reached the TJ Memorial, the kids were pooped 

Gummy bears to the rescue. Did you know that Thomas Jefferson invented the gummy bear? 

That's not true, but what was true was that the tidal basin offered opportunities to see some wondrous wildlife up close 

The FDR memorial is full of rock and water 

and a shout-out to the greatest First Lady of all-time 

this time in DC, it was hard not to reflect on how uninspiring our current POTUS is. Can you imagine the real DJT uttering words like this?

onto the next memorial. Remember these words?

That's one giant reverend. Just last week we saw an equally large image.
50 years ago, April 4th, shot rings out in the Memphis sky...

The Belmont Paul Women's Equality National Monument celebrates the effort in the early 20th century to ratify the 19th Amendment

Does the woman in green not look like a young Joan Ehmann?

There were fascinating 20th century artifacts, like a typewriter

and rotary telephone

Anti-suffragists created the suffrage cat parody as if to say, if we let women vote, who's next? Personally, I would let this puss vote anywhere, especially in Pennsylvania, if he could fill in the boxes next to the blue candidates

but the highlight was learning about the ratification banner, which Erin had just celebrated in her recorder class at school. Then she busted out the recorder while Caroline and Brooke sang along. The ranger captured the video and posted in to the site's Facebook page. Way to go Erin, Caroline, and Brooke!

Next we headed to the Conway-Rehding estate where the artist-in-residence gave a painting lesson

The top of the studio is very green

Our hike at the C&O canal was very hot, but good for the kids' constitutions

This was take 1 of the recorder concert. On take 2 for the Ranger and Facebook, they nailed it

4th of July in DC

The day after school ended we kayaked around the Concord River

 

then Dave, Caroline, and Erin flew to Maryland to spend 2 weeks visiting sisters. At Boxwood Farm there is always great grilling

and while I worked during the day, Charlie and Erin delivered me lunch. (I actually read that 1884 1st edition of US Grant's memoirs. Quite a general was Grant and one of those great American stories of a kid from Ohio earning an education and rising to the highest levels)

We dog-sat for tenants of a house even older than Boxwood Farm. Sudley house dates from the 1720s and had huuuge fireplaces in the great hall and bedrooms. 

General Bobblehead George, you have come to the end of the road. You've seen your birthplace, Fort Necessity where you led your men into a massacre, the Cambridge common where you received command of the Continental Army, your winter headquarters at Morristown and Valley Forge, Yorktown, Federal Hall, the C&O canal, Fort Washington, and now your beloved home plantation of Mount Vernon.

All the cousins except Charlie made the trip

That is flax drying so its fibers can be harvested and spun into linen. Among the 3 natural fibers used for centuries in clothing, we'd seen cotton and wool demonstrations, but this was the first time seeing flax. It takes a lot of work to process the stalks into thread, but the interpreters who wore all-linen outfits loved the durability and softness.

Those are the fireworks for the DC celebration being loaded on a barge. I would guess that George's ghost approves of his docks use to commemorate an event from his lifetime.

And there is the original tomb and final resting place of GW

At Claire's we were treated to delicious meals and played many games

and the kids created a quest for me. In this one we had to direct the model to recreate famous paintings. Watch those arm and leg positions, Erin, you're a pre-Raphaelite.

The finale was a disarming of the "poisoned" soda bottle using Mentos

We knocked off the remaining unvisited NPS sites in DC. Here are the beautiful, ahem, Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens on the Anacostia River. At least they were very green.

and there are always new monuments going up. This is the Dwight D. Eisenhower memorial shoehorned next to the Dept of Education and across from the Erin Space Museum.

and when Tessie and Heather flew into DCA, why wouldn't we brave the heat and humidity to see the Jefferson Memorial?

Dinner at Jerry's house was much better

Katy had a bumper crop of honey from her bees. She's streamlined the harvesting operation, which entails cutting off the caps of the boxes, spinning out the honey, filtering it, and then pouring it into bottles to give to friends and family.