Art & Ideas

We put in a long day of touring today. Poor Mel woke up with the beginnings of a head cold. That explains why he had no oomph yesterday and we just lazed around the area and in the camper. But he was determined that we do some touring in downtown DC.

First, we started with a bus ride to the College Park train station and then headed to the Navy Memorial-National Archives stop. As we ascended from the station, the Navy Memorial was in the plaza and is pictured above.
Since we hadn't eaten breakfast, we decided to go to National Gallery of Art, where we had an early lunch at the Cascade Cafe. We watched the waterfall as we ate our lunch and enjoyed people watching as tour groups of school children passed from the East Building of the Gallery to the West Building and vice versa. Then, we got busy and followed a map with the top 12 paintings, recommended by the gallery staff. This was like a treasure hunt and took us through many different galleries of American and European art. While I took many photos of my favorite artists, the photo of the painting above is one of my favorites. How precious is that? This was in the French Impressionists gallery and the painter escapes my memory now, but I wanted to include it anyway. According to Mel, I only took photos of religious art, but I can't help that so much of the paintings by great artists had religious themes. Oh well! All of this art was on the Main Floor of the Gallery. Before we left the Gallery, we made our way to the Ground Floor of the Gallery that houses special exhibits and the Sculpture Gallery. There was so much to see and somehow we kept circling around and revisiting some galleries and missing others, so someday we will have to return as we didn't even get into the areas where Modern Art was displayed.
After we left the National Gallery of Art, we headed to the Sculpture Garden for a much needed rest before entering the National Archives that houses the originals of the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, and the the Bill of Rights. I couldn't wait to see these documents. To think that a mere 3 documents form the basis of our democracy is amazing. We spent 3 1/2 hours in the Archives. We attended two movies that explained the work of the archivists with the documents. This museum was just fascinating. I plan to try to do some research through the archives on the web to see how much I can find out about our families without having to actually meet with an archivist. Mel particularly enjoyed the special exhibit, "The Way We Worked." The photo above shows the exterior of the National Archives. In the foreground is the sculpture, "Aurora" by Mark di Suvero. This is one of the many sculptures in the Sculpture Garden.

Of all the sculptures in the Sculpture Gardens, Claes Oldenburg's "Typewriter Eraser," was Mel's favorite. It is basic and easy to understand. With his cold, Mel was in no mood for nuances and subtleties. As we viewed the final exhibit in the Archives, Mel turned to me and said, "Take me home!" Poor guy was pretty miserable. Between the commute, a quick dinner and some minor food shopping, we didn't reach the RV until after 8 p.m. While we talked about taking in the U. S. Capitol Building tomorrow, we will have to wait to see how Mel feels in the a.m.