Current mood:	accomplished
Entry tags:	family, pets, travels

Trip to Wash DC - Part Two - with Masonic Royalty

My my. Got back from the Washington trip 2.5 weeks ago. Must... Finish... My Trip.... Posts....

Really, not to be obsessive but I designated my LJ as my journal for writing, traveling, social and political events. So now to quickly recap -- with photos -- the rest of my visit with Samily and their 1960s condo high on a hill in Alexandria, Virgina. In their town, in fact, right between their condo and the King Street Metro Station, is the otherworldly George Washington Masonic Memorial. It sits on its own hill and has Masonic attendants who whisper to you with awed voices about the murals and the stained glass. My dad made 32nd degree Mason in Texas in the 1950s and then received an honorary 33rd degree for some hard work he did. This made the mustachio'd Mason on duty quite impressed! Sam whispered, "I think you're descended from royalty."

The place was otherwordly in that the stained glass panels were akin to those I viewed at Sainte Chapelle in Paris. Only these are U.S. Patriots: Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, etc. With tiny little stained glass scenes from their lives around them. Did you know Jefferson died but arose three days later? And Washington had but to gesture with his walking staff and the Delaware turned red and parted so that he and his troops could walk across to attack the British? At least, that's what I think these murals and glass windows were telling me. Plus the view was awesome! You could see Washington DC and the Jefferson Memorial and Capitol Building.



Sam and Emily at the top of the George Washington Masonic Memorial. I helpfully put in arrows to show the Washington DC landmarks in the distance.

Me inside the the Masonic Memorial. Note the mural has George Washington wearing one of those frilly Masonic aprons. Dude, I know it's symbolic but it looks like a circa 1955 housewife.

That trip to the Masonic Memorial was what we did Sunday, after we shopped at the Alexandria Trader Joe's. I've been hearing about Trader Joe's forever, have even snacked on stuff from there, and never visited one. And it did have cool and upscale stuff, all crammed into a pretty tiny place. Reminded me a lot of the first Whole Foods, back in the day, but with way more yuppies than burned-out old hippies. I got some really good dark chocolate for gifts, and some Pirate Booty (popped corn with white cheddar flavor). Which we ate Sunday night along with Em's homemade barley soup and the frozen crabcakes from Joe's which were, indeed, tasty and different. Samily had the frozen Nan bread and declared it sumptious too.

Sunday evening was low-key because the next day I had an early flight (well, 9:30 a.m., not so bad) back to Austin and Sam had his first day of work in eight years. And Sam was kinda freaked. He was also real cute -- polishing his shoes, ironing his shirt, laying out his dockers and socks and tie. I asked Em if she was preparing a bag lunch to put into his backpack... Sam's job is something secret for the Federal government, and from what I heard later, he seems to really like what he's doing. It's great when a plan -- to get his Masters and his PhD in geology -- all comes together! Especially when the couple then get to experience the high-quality-of-life, urban lifestyle.

Sunday early afternoon, Emily and I also took the Metro into DuPont Circle and walked through a cool & funky neighborhood to find the Textile Museum. How cool? As you ambled along, there was the Spanish embassy! Over there, the Chinese embassy. And the Myanmar Embassy, which seemed to have some sort of statue in honor of the famous Washington Zoo Pandas. It had writing and signatures all over it.

On the the busy street, we passed a really good Italian restaurant called Il Tomate and had a delicious lunch. The Textile Museum was okay; Emily loves to embroider, cross-stitch and all that stuff. It was a lot of thread and fabric, so she was in heaven. I recovered enough from the extended walking that when we got back to Alexandria, and after a short pause to drink coffee in a shop, I was able to amble down King Street to check the stores still open: the Ethiopian Shop! About four different antique and junque shops, and an aviation place.

Me standing almost, not quite, in the Mynamar Embassy garden.

Saturday, to be non-chronological, Em and I took the Metro over to the Smithsonian. The National Gallery has an awesome gift shop, so we did holiday shopping there and scored Big Time. She completed lots of her shopping and I got cool things for various family, coworkers and friends, especially LeslieC. I had to see my Vermeers, and then we bumped into other favorites like: Rembrandt, Constable, Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet, Manet, Gaughin, El Greco. And Emily wanted to look at the personal sacred art in the Netherlandish Diptych special exhibit. It was cool, especially when they'd paint skulls or death mementos on the reverse sides. We also took time out to snack on mushroom soup at the tearoom, where I kept testing my new camera's ability to take shots without a flash.

Em in the National Gallery Tearoom with busy elevators behind her.

Over at the American Indian Museum, there were some cool but expensive artists and artisans showing their wares in the lobby. Ah, how much I wanted one of the embroidered coats ($300-800). We checked out a few exhibits there, bought more stuff, but the highlight of this museum was the incredibly cool native foods cafeteria! You could get fry bread, beans and corn in the Navajo area. Or cranberry flavored acorn squash and cold duck salad in the Northeastern Tribe area (which is what I ordered). All kinds of different foods for the different regions and tribes. Even interesting teas and infusions and other drinks. Very cool! Even though we'd just eaten, we got more food.

We visited the Hirshhorn as well, and wanted to go into the Museum of Natural History, but were tuckered out. So we metro'd back to Alexandria and got Sam to run from the condo to rendezvous with us at the metro station. Then we three ambled back down King Street and tried one of the French restaurants we'd passed the night before. Again, there was delicious bread with olive oil that I DIDN'T GET TO EAT. I ordered quiche and salad (hey, we'd had two lunches just a few hours before). They were fine. Sam and I also shared a slice of cheesecake topped with sorbet, which was refreshing. But this place was a shadow of the greatness that we'd had at the Greek restaurant the night before. Oh man!

I was worried about my American Eagle flight back to Austin on Monday, but it was fine. It was a small plane, only 37 people and rows of just three people. It stopped in Raleigh where we had to deplane and get back on, but my seat remained the same. It was old, kinda beat-up, with just one attendant. But the seats were spaced nicely and I had two seats to myself. Got back 30 minutes later than I planned, but was able to get into the office and do about 5 hours of work!