Words, Words, Words

 

There are so many world-class museums in Washington DC that it is hard to pick where to go next. There are also so many people who want to visit these museums that some of them have resorted to reservation systems. Gone are the days of being able to walk into the front door and wander around. A lot of the museums even have security check points now. I really dislike visiting places where the crowds are so thick that you have to wait in line to view some type of exhibit.

Cherry Blossoms - A Time of Renewal

 

No matter how many times you go to Washington D.C., you can never see it all. You could hang out there for weeks and weeks and just scratch the surface. It is really a problem for a completist like myself. This time, I spent almost a week here and the time whizzed by. I will say, though, this time my timing was really spot on.

Forts and Houses

Hey – it's still raining. My shoes are all wet, my socks are all wet. Nothing seems to be drying. Seems like a good day to go to Baltimore.

Actually, I was planning on doing some hiking in some of the local parks today, but everything is just too wet. Poor Miko, she has been pretty much stuck inside except for a couple of quick walks in the rain. When I turned on the news tonight, they said that they were not recommending anybody go to one of the parks I had picked out because there was a overflow of 100 million gallons of sewage which has been released into Rock Creek and the Potomac. That is the number they quoted. Ish.

Anyways, on to Baltimore. Baltimore is only about 45 minutes away so I thought it would be a nice diversion from DC. Actually, I just didn't want to spend the time on public transportation today. There is a toll road which you have to take if you want to go the most direct route. On the toll booth, there is a sign that says No windshield wipers. I asked the toll booth operator why and she said it was because if the windshield wipers are on, they force all the water from the windshield into the toll booth. She says “We shower every day, we don't need any more”

Fort McHenry National Monument and Historical Shrine – the place were the Star Spangled Banner was written. Did you know the original flag that Francis Scott Key wrote the word for was 30 feet by 40 feet? I think that has got to be much much bigger than a Perkins flag. Did you also know that the Star Spangled Banner did not become our national anthem until 1931? Evidently there was an outspoken faction who did not want the song to be our national anthem because the tune is based on an old English drinking song.

 

 

Entrance Fee is $10 but because I have the Senior Pass, it is free admission. Watched a short movie and then went out in the pouring rain and walked on the ramparts of the fort. It is called a Star Fort because that is the shape of it. Inside the ramparts, are some more exhibits and I watched another movie (it was an excuse to get out of the rain). This movie was pretty good – it explained the battle and what happened. It had all these little animated ships which every time they fired a cannon it would look like little fireworks. Again, I am easily amused. I probably spent about an hour roaming around the fort. Did I mention, in the rain?

Speaking of which, my raincoat is a raincoat that is specifically designed for riding horses. It has an extra large hood to go over a helmet. Most of the time, since I've had the coat (five years or so), if I'm not wearing a helmet, I walk around with the hood way down over my eyes. Very irritating. I discovered today that there is a Velcro strip on the back of the hood that makes the hood smaller and keeps it out of my eyes. I can now actually walk around and see where I'm going. Ha.

Hampton National Historic Site – This is a Georgian mansion built in 1790. At the time it was built, it was thought to be the largest private owned dwelling in America. The estate itself equaled half the size of present day Baltimore. The first “master” made his fortune in iron works. The Ridgelys were also know for their racehorses. A Ridgely family lived in the house until 1948 when they deeded it over to the Park Service. I toured the house – each room was decorated in a different era and 95% of all of the furnishings were original to that time period. Evidently the Ridgelys were a little bit of the pack rat mentality. It was a lovely house. Also, at one time, there were about 300 slaves working the property which gives you an idea of the scale of the place.

 

 

 

 

The Parlor

These two pieces of wooden furniture are commodes.  Our tour guide was quite enamored of them and pointed them out several times to all of us

A Cedar of Lebanon, brought back from the Middle East as a seedling by Eliza Ridgely in the 1820s, is one of the largest in the U.S

Formal Gardens

When I got back home, I walked Miko and then I plugged in one of my space heaters. Then I plugged in the other space heater. Evidently, with my new wiring from the solar, some of the outlets are now on the same circuit. Something blew and now several outlets and the TV in the front no longer has power. I looked at my circuit breakers and they all seem to be in the correct position, nothing looks like it is blown. I have an email into my solar guy to see where the fuse might be for these outlets.

Standard Washington

I upgraded my PC to Windows 10.  Seems they have a new version of Internet called Edge.  Seems like Edge is not compatible with my blog and it has taken me a little bit of time to make it all work.

Another day in the Capital. We not only have a nor'easter happening, we have a hurricane on the way. Coastal Flooding, Flash Flooding – my brand new weather radio is going nuts. At least I know it works. What this means is cold, windy and rain, rain, rain. Forecast is for tons of rain in the next couple of days. That is ok, I'm just going to slosh around – got my rain coat, nothing can stop me.

Getting to be an old hand at this public transportation thing. Got the bus, got on the green line subway, transferred to the orange line – I was rocking it.

First up is the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. This is one of two places in the US of A where all the money is printed. This place prints 800 million dollars a day. Inconceivable. I happened to be first in line to get on the tour. Almost immediately, about twenty orthodox Jews got in line behind me. Followed by some Asians, followed by some women in hajib. There were about forty people in line half of them kids. Quite a cross section of America.

First you watch a short film that explains the process and the security around the printing. Then you get to go in and actually watch the money getting printed. There is something so fascinating about assembly line machinery. It makes you just marvel at how resourceful humans are. If you have seen how newspapers are printed, some of the machines looked like that with sheets of money ripping through. Of course the tour ended up in the gift shop.

Back out into the rain and got myself on the Circulator. The Circulator is a bus that “circulates” around the mall and you can get off and on at various stops along the way. The Circulator is something that DC used to have but all the tour buses complained and they stopped. I lucked out because the Circulator just started up again six weeks ago and it only costs a dollar for two hours of circulating.

I used the Circulator to pick up some Monuments that I hadn't seen in all the trips to DC that I have done in the past.

 

The Jefferson Memorial. I had seen pictures of it, usually in the springtime with all the cherry trees around it. Today, while still majestic, it was a little dreary. I also visited the exhibits that are in the basement of the monument. They have a huge statue of Jefferson in the rotunda.

 

 

View of Washington from the steps - what a dreary day

Next stop was the Martin Luther King Memorial. On the side of the stone bearing MLK's likeness, there is a quote from the “I Have a Dream” speech - “Out of the Mountain of Despair, a Stone of Hope” which serves as the basis for the monument's design. There are fourteen other inspirational quotes along the back wall.

 

 

Onto the WWII memorial. I found this memorial rather moving. There are 56 granite pillars arranged in a semicircle around a plaza with two arches on opposite sides. One is labeled “Pacific”, the other “Atlantic” .

 

Today I seemed to have camera tiltitus

The pillars are all labeled with a state's name

 

 

On one side of the plaza is The Freedom Wall. The wall has 4,048 gold stars, each representing 100 Americans who died or were missing in the war. That would be a total of 404,800 lives lost – only the Civil War had a greater loss of life. Half a million people and that is just the American toll.

 

 

Crime and Punishment

Time to move on. I liked staying at Assateague, but the big city calls. It is on to the Headquarters of the Free World – Washington D.C. Well, perhaps that is overstating it a bit, but it was a nice turn of phrase. A pleasant drive – the road took me back into Delaware again and then into Maryland. I was on what they call the East Coast of Maryland which means I had to cross the Bay Bridge. This bridge is 4 ½ miles long – a twin span. It was huge and very old.

Picture from the web:

It seemed to go on forever

Washington DC is very urban, hence there are no really great choices as far as RV parks go in the area. That said, I am at an extremely expensive RV park ($58 after discounts) in College Park called Cherry Hill Park. It actually is rather an amazing place. They have 400 sites, it is huge. They make it very easy to get into D.C. A Metrobus comes right to the park which takes you to the subway which takes you into town. It takes about an hour travel time, but it is super convenient. This park also has a one mile nature trail which winds through the woods around the park. Great place to walk Miko. The cons are that it is right in the middle of several freeways, so there is a noise factor. Have you ever noticed that freeway noise is sort of like the crash of waves? It gets to be sort of a white noise after a while.

I bought a metro pass which allows me to take the bus and subway and headed into town. Most of the other people who left the park with me were heading to the Smithsonian museums or the Washington Mall. Not me. I had some really cool things planned.

First up was the Museum of Crime and Punishment. Today was it's last day of being open – they had lost their lease and were looking for a new place. When you first get started touring the museum, it starts of chronological – we are back in the Middle Ages and there are all sorts of exhibits of various torture devices. I must admit, at this point I was questioning my decision to go to this museum. As I went further into the museum, it became more and more fascinating.

 

Thumbscrews, Leg Irons, Head Cage (in case you needed to poke eyes out or something)

 

After the medieval exhibit, it started talking about crimes that happened in the colonial period of America. There was an understanding that if crimes were not punished severely enough, God would bring down all sorts of wrath.

 

 

After the colonial period, there was a section about pirates which talked, among other things, about how and why their various interpretations of the Jolly Roger flag was flown. There was also a section on women pirates who could be just as blood thirsty as their male counterpoints.

The exhibits proceeded on in chronological order, through prohibition with Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd and Bonnie and Clyde. On to current day (or at least the last thirty/forty years) with Manson, Dahmer, Gacy.

 

Car used in the movie Bonnie and Clyde, complete with bullet holes

 

The museum was not all about crime – it was also about law enforcement – how law enforcement worked to keep crime in check. There were exhibits about various prisons( Sing Sing, Attica etc), different types of carrying out death penalties (electric chair, lethal injections) and there was a forensics lab where they had a mannequin laid out with different wounds, talking about how medical examiners would take a crime case and decode it.

 

Al Capone's Cell - quite a difference from everybody else's cell

 

The second museum was the International Spy Museum. When you entered this museum, you had to pick a prepared cover story and memorize it. Through out the whole exhibit, you would be asked questions and they would try to trip you up to break your cover.

This museum had all sorts of spy gadgets. I almost felt like I was in a Great Smart episode. There were all sorts of camera apparatus – shoe cameras, lapel cameras. We had huge exhibits of all the different types of bugs. There was an exhibit where you could put headphones on and listen to ongoing conversations happening in different parts of the museums. All sorts of exhibits – everything you needed to know to be a spy.

The special exhibition was about all the James Bond villains over the years. It made me want to got and watch every single James Bond movie (in order) again. They had lots of film clips and the parphenalia from the films. They also asked you to decide if some of the gadgets were fact or fiction.

The museums were very interactive – lots of buttons to push, lots of video to watch. Very enjoyable day.