TRIP TO DC

Yesterday Jerry and I took a trip into the District. It was one of those trips where we had many planned sites to see and discovered other unexpected ones along the way.

Since this year long photo project has morphed from the 365 project of daily photos into a photo journal for 2008 I would like to share some pictures from our days travels. I tried to pick out a few of the highlights and will share them in two posts. One made today and the other hopefully tomorrow or Tuesday.

Our first stop of the day after we arrived downtown via a very crowded Metro system was the Botanical Gardens which are at the Capitol end of the Mall.

This was my birthday trip so I got to choose the activities and the first was a stop to see a small quilt exhibit at the Botanical Gardens. The show was around quilts which had depictions of flowers and/or vegetation. I know several of the women who had quilts in the exhibit and so wanted to see them. This is one of the wonderful quilts that was there . It is a marvelous example of hand appliqué work done over the top of a beautifully pieced background. I love the way the quilt maker chose the fabrics she used and the effect of shading in the background.
I found my first surprise of the day here at the gardens. Not only was there the quilt exhibit, but they had a special exhibit of orchids. They had ones of every color and size imaginable. Some were very delicate while others looked very strong and sturdy. This was one of my favorite that I managed to get a good photograph of.

We spent additional time going through a few other of the many exhibits and then decided if we were going to see all we had come down to see we had better move on. So we headed back outside. (The Botanical gardens are primarily indoors in controlled environments.) It was now lunch time and so we found a seat on some steps by the reflecting pool in front of the Capitol building and ate a rather chilly lunch. This was the view from where we ate.

I think that all towns across the country must have emptied out and headed for Washington DC yesterday. I have never seen so many people in town. We thought it was crowded up by the Capitol, but it was empty up there compared to our next stop which was to see the Cherry Blossoms around the Tidal Basin and the Jefferson Memorial.

We took a bus to as close as we could get and then walked the remainder of the way. The Mall and Monument areas of Washington are known for their game fields. Almost any hour of any day you will come a crossed some sport being played and yesterday was no exception. Normally you expect to find football in the fall, baseball in the spring and soccer all year long. Yesterday we found along out walk what at first I thought was soccer, but discovered when I saw the ball was rugby. I've never seen rugby played before and so we stopped and watched for a while. What they say is true: it makes American football look like a game for wimps. Rugby is one rough game and the players wear no protective clothing. Here is a picture of the beginning of a pile up which the ball is under. They just keep pulling and clawing at each other until the referee determines no one will be able to get the ball out. It was also interesting that when they toss the ball out from the sidelines team members pick up one of the guys and lift him up over their shoulders so he can try and catch the ball. It was very interesting to see and another unexpected treat.

After this short stop we reinserted ourselves into the flow of humanity heading to the tidal basin and moved on closer to the cherry blossoms. But that is where I will pick up later as this post is already long enough. I hope you are enjoying this trip through Washington on a chilly spring day.