Alexandria VA
Philadelphia Museum of Art
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4-15-16 (Friday) Because dinner at our hotel was not very good, we found a breakfast place near Courthouse Station in Arlington VA called Corner Bakery Cafe. We took metro to Smithsonian Station then walked to Constitution Gardens. We saw all the monuments & were most impressed with the Washington Monument, Martin Luther King Jr Memorial, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, Lincoln Memorial & the Vietnam War Memorial. That is the order in which we saw them. Then we walked past the White House & circled back to the base of the Washington Monument, because Rusty wanted a brochure. Then we went back to the hotel to nap. In the evening, we took metro to Metro Center Station. Metro Center was a very nice part of Washington, with office buildings, hotels & shops. We walked past Ford’s Theater on our way to Chinatown where we ate at New Big Wong. We took metro back to the hotel from Gallery Place Station. There was a bit of an entertainment district near Gallery Place shopping center.
4-16-16 (Saturday) Jordan left the hotel before Rusty & Steve to see the United States Botanic Garden when it opened at 10. They went to the Renwick Gallery near the White House. The garden was very near the US Capitol Building. Jordan walked past the Capitol to Pennsylvania Avenue on Capitol Hill, an old & upscale residential neighborhood. We all met outside Eastern Market, an old brick building with stalls that sold bread, cheese, seafood & meat, as well as some prepared food. There was a huge flea market in the surrounding streets. We had lunch nearby at 7th Hill pizza. Then we explored the two markets. There were shops & restaurants along Pennsylvania Avenue & on 8th Street, also called Barracks Row for the Marine barracks along one side of the street, not far from the Navy Yard on the Anacostia River. We walked back to the Capitol building, past the Library of Congress & the Supreme Court. We toured the National Museum of the American Indian, part of the Smithsonian complex. The museum covered all of the Indians of the Americas. The was an interesting exhibit called The Great Inka Road: Engineering an Empire. We took metro back to the hotel from Federal Center Station. We napped.
We went out fairly late for dinner on U Street in an integrated, gentrifying area. There were lots of bars & restaurants, all of them full. People crowded the sidewalks. They were mostly young & black, with a significant number of young whites, sometimes in mixed-race groups & some of them drunk. U Street was thick with cars which blocked the crosswalks at times. It was overwhelming. We ate at Sala Thai, because there were empty tables.
4-17-16 (Sunday) We took metro to King Street Station in Alexandria VA. We took a trolley from the station to the waterfront, then toured Old Town Alexandria. Rusty & Steve spent time in the Torpedo Factory Art Center, filled with 82 artist studios. Jordan wandered around Old Town taking photos. There was a large area filled with row houses from the 18th & 19th centuries. We had lunch at a restaurant in an old fire station called Columbia Firehouse. It was not very good. We walked back to the station along King Street, which was lined with shops. We took metro to Smithsonian Station. We went to the National Museum of Natural History. It was very crowded. We saw lots of taxidermied mammals. We spent a lot of time in the exhibit on human evolution. We also saw a living insect zoo & an exhibit on excavating dinosaur bones in South Dakota. We took metro from there to Union Station which serves Amtrak trains & has a shopping mall & a huge food court. The building was huge, old & impressive. But the mall & food court were not interesting at all. We had dinner at Heavy Seas Alehouse near our hotel. The food was good.
4-18-16 (Monday) We took metro to Dupont Circle Station where we had breakfast at Le Pain Quotidien. It was quite good. Rusty decided to do some office work on his computer at Panera restaurant. Steve & Jordan walked up New Hampshire Avenue to Meridian Hill Park. We saw a few embassies of African nations, then some interesting homes near the park in a gentrifying area, not far from where we had been on U Street. Meridian Hill Park (also known as Malcolm X Park) was nice. It would have been much nicer, if the extensive water features had been running. We walked back on Florida Avenue & 19th Street. They were lined with 19th century row houses. The houses on 19th Street were beautiful. One was for sale for $2,300,000.
We had lunch at a food court in Metro Center, where we stopped on the metro along the way to Capitol South Station. From that station, we walked to the Hart Senate Office Building. We went to the office of US Senator for Washington Maria Cantwell. A student, who was about to graduate in political studies from the University of Washington, took 8 of us on a tour of the US Capitol Building. She was a terrible guide & gave some obviously inaccurate information. She said the Mason Dixon decision was made in the old Supreme Court chambers. It was nice to see the interior of the oldest parts of the building. We did not see the inside of the modern Senate, or House of Representatives. It took two hours. We had dinner at Ruby Tuesday near the hotel.
4-19-16 (Tuesday) We split up that day. Jordan took metro to Foggy Bottom Station, then walked to Georgetown, down residential streets, then along the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal towpath as far as Georgetown University. Georgetown was beautiful & very upscale, filled with expensive 18th & 19th century row houses. He walked from Georgetown to Dupont Circle Station, took metro to Metro Center Station, then walked to the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden in the Smithsonian Complex. The museum is a famous example of modern architecture, built in concrete. He also saw the Freer Museum of Asian Art & the National Museum of African Art later that day. He met Rusty & Steve for dinner near the Foggy Bottom Station at Circa. It was quite good. Rusty & Steve had spent the morning at the Newseum & the National Archives, then had lunch at The Capitol Grille. They had a segway tour, with a company called Segs in the City, of the monuments in Constitution Gardens that we had seen before. But they also saw the Jefferson Memorial out across the Tidal Basin, which we had missed.
4-20-16 (Wednesday) Rusty & Steve went to get a rental car. They took turns driving to Philadelphia. Jordan rode in the passenger seat. We could see downtown Baltimore & its harbor from I-95. We stopped in Kennett Square PA to see Longwood Gardens. The garden was very nice & quite large. The conservatory was excellent. We were there 2 hours. Rusty had lived near the garden from 1998 to 1991 at Chadd’s Ford PA. We saw his old apartment complex & office building from the road. We arrived at the Wyndham Philadelphia Historic District at 6 PM. Our room was nice, but had no view. We had dinner at La Locanda del Ghiottone, a small & very good restaurant just a few blocks from the hotel. We walked around that part of Old City for 30 minutes. There were many shops, restaurants & apartments.
4-21-16 (Thursday) We had breakfast at the hotel, which wasn’t good at all. Then we walked around Old City. We saw Betsy Ross House, Elfreth’s Alley (the oldest residential street in the US) Washington Square & Independence National Historical Park with the Liberty Bell & Constitution Hall. That afternoon, Rusty went to visit friends. Steve went to have a massage. Jordan walked around the Society Hill neighborhood for 2.5 hours. It was filled with well-kept 18th & 19th century row houses & historic markers similar to Georgetown & Old Town Alexandria. When Steve got back, they went to dinner at Cosi, a mediocre place with sandwiches, salads & pizza. Rusty was out for dinner.
4-22 16 (Friday) Jordan left the hotel at 8 AM. He walked to Rittenhouse Square through Midtown Village to City Hall in Logan Circle, the central business district. Philadelphia seemed much than Seattle. There were many more office towers & great crowds of people on the wide sidewalks. Rusty & Steve contacted Jordan at 10 AM. He took the subway back to the area of the hotel, where we met at the station, then took the subway back to City Hall. The train moved very quickly. Rusty & Steve went to the One Liberty Observation Deck on the 57th floor of a highrise building. Jordan waited on a bench in Rittenhouse Square. We walked around for a short time, then had lunch at Marathon Grill at 1 PM. It was really quite good. The restaurant situation was much better in Philadelphia than in Washington DC.
We took a bus to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It museum was wonderful. There were great quantities of art, antique household items & pieces of architecture assembled to recreate rooms & courtyards from other cultures. There was a Japanese teahouse & garden completely landscaped with live plants & a brightly-lighted ceiling. An Uber driver came to take us back to the hotel. We had dinner at a busy Italian restaurant called Spasso near the hotel. The day had been warm & increasingly cloudy. It was raining lightly when we left the restaurant, the first time we had rain.
4-23-16 (Saturday) This was the last day of our trip. Our flight didn’t leave Philadelphia until 5:45 PM. We had a buffet breakfast near the hotel. It was raining moderately. We put our bags in the rental car & drove across the Schuylkill River to the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropology & Archaeology. It was interesting, but not nearly as good as the Philadelphia Museum of Art. We saw artifacts from many cultures both modern & ancient. We had lunch at the museum. It had stopped raining, so we went to Bartram’s Garden, a few miles south of the museum, on the bank of the Schuylkill River. The garden was mostly woodland at the site of a farm more than 200 years old. The stone house & barn were nicely preserved. We were at the airport by 3 PM. We arrived in Seattle at 8 PM. We were home before 9 PM.
4-14-16 (Thursday) We flew to Washington DC & arrived at 4:30 PM at Reagan International Airport. We took the metro train to Rosslyn Station in Arlington VA. Our hotel, the Hyatt Arlington, was across the street from the station. From our room, there was a view of Foggy Bottom in Washington DC across the Potomac River. We had dinner at the hotel. We watched the Democratic debate between Hillary Clinton & Bernie Sanders in our room.
4-15-16 (Friday) Because dinner at our hotel was not very good, we found a breakfast place near Courthouse Station in Arlington VA called Corner Bakery Cafe. We took metro to Smithsonian Station then walked to Constitution Gardens. We saw all the monuments & were most impressed with the Washington Monument, Martin Luther King Jr Memorial, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, Lincoln Memorial & the Vietnam War Memorial. That is the order in which we saw them. Then we walked past the White House & circled back to the base of the Washington Monument, because Rusty wanted a brochure. Then we went back to the hotel to nap. In the evening, we took metro to Metro Center Station. Metro Center was a very nice part of Washington, with office buildings, hotels & shops. We walked past Ford’s Theater on our way to Chinatown where we ate at New Big Wong. We took metro back to the hotel from Gallery Place Station. There was a bit of an entertainment district near Gallery Place shopping center.
4-16-16 (Saturday) Jordan left the hotel before Rusty & Steve to see the United States Botanic Garden when it opened at 10. They went to the Renwick Gallery near the White House. The garden was very near the US Capitol Building. Jordan walked past the Capitol to Pennsylvania Avenue on Capitol Hill, an old & upscale residential neighborhood. We all met outside Eastern Market, an old brick building with stalls that sold bread, cheese, seafood & meat, as well as some prepared food. There was a huge flea market in the surrounding streets. We had lunch nearby at 7th Hill pizza. Then we explored the two markets. There were shops & restaurants along Pennsylvania Avenue & on 8th Street, also called Barracks Row for the Marine barracks along one side of the street, not far from the Navy Yard on the Anacostia River. We walked back to the Capitol building, past the Library of Congress & the Supreme Court. We toured the National Museum of the American Indian, part of the Smithsonian complex. The museum covered all of the Indians of the Americas. The was an interesting exhibit called The Great Inka Road: Engineering an Empire. We took metro back to the hotel from Federal Center Station. We napped.
We went out fairly late for dinner on U Street in an integrated, gentrifying area. There were lots of bars & restaurants, all of them full. People crowded the sidewalks. They were mostly young & black, with a significant number of young whites, sometimes in mixed-race groups & some of them drunk. U Street was thick with cars which blocked the crosswalks at times. It was overwhelming. We ate at Sala Thai, because there were empty tables.
4-17-16 (Sunday) We took metro to King Street Station in Alexandria VA. We took a trolley from the station to the waterfront, then toured Old Town Alexandria. Rusty & Steve spent time in the Torpedo Factory Art Center, filled with 82 artist studios. Jordan wandered around Old Town taking photos. There was a large area filled with row houses from the 18th & 19th centuries. We had lunch at a restaurant in an old fire station called Columbia Firehouse. It was not very good. We walked back to the station along King Street, which was lined with shops. We took metro to Smithsonian Station. We went to the National Museum of Natural History. It was very crowded. We saw lots of taxidermied mammals. We spent a lot of time in the exhibit on human evolution. We also saw a living insect zoo & an exhibit on excavating dinosaur bones in South Dakota. We took metro from there to Union Station which serves Amtrak trains & has a shopping mall & a huge food court. The building was huge, old & impressive. But the mall & food court were not interesting at all. We had dinner at Heavy Seas Alehouse near our hotel. The food was good.
4-18-16 (Monday) We took metro to Dupont Circle Station where we had breakfast at Le Pain Quotidien. It was quite good. Rusty decided to do some office work on his computer at Panera restaurant. Steve & Jordan walked up New Hampshire Avenue to Meridian Hill Park. We saw a few embassies of African nations, then some interesting homes near the park in a gentrifying area, not far from where we had been on U Street. Meridian Hill Park (also known as Malcolm X Park) was nice. It would have been much nicer, if the extensive water features had been running. We walked back on Florida Avenue & 19th Street. They were lined with 19th century row houses. The houses on 19th Street were beautiful. One was for sale for $2,300,000.
We had lunch at a food court in Metro Center, where we stopped on the metro along the way to Capitol South Station. From that station, we walked to the Hart Senate Office Building. We went to the office of US Senator for Washington Maria Cantwell. A student, who was about to graduate in political studies from the University of Washington, took 8 of us on a tour of the US Capitol Building. She was a terrible guide & gave some obviously inaccurate information. She said the Mason Dixon decision was made in the old Supreme Court chambers. It was nice to see the interior of the oldest parts of the building. We did not see the inside of the modern Senate, or House of Representatives. It took two hours. We had dinner at Ruby Tuesday near the hotel.
4-19-16 (Tuesday) We split up that day. Jordan took metro to Foggy Bottom Station, then walked to Georgetown, down residential streets, then along the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal towpath as far as Georgetown University. Georgetown was beautiful & very upscale, filled with expensive 18th & 19th century row houses. He walked from Georgetown to Dupont Circle Station, took metro to Metro Center Station, then walked to the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden in the Smithsonian Complex. The museum is a famous example of modern architecture, built in concrete. He also saw the Freer Museum of Asian Art & the National Museum of African Art later that day. He met Rusty & Steve for dinner near the Foggy Bottom Station at Circa. It was quite good. Rusty & Steve had spent the morning at the Newseum & the National Archives, then had lunch at The Capitol Grille. They had a segway tour, with a company called Segs in the City, of the monuments in Constitution Gardens that we had seen before. But they also saw the Jefferson Memorial out across the Tidal Basin, which we had missed.
4-20-16 (Wednesday) Rusty & Steve went to get a rental car. They took turns driving to Philadelphia. Jordan rode in the passenger seat. We could see downtown Baltimore & its harbor from I-95. We stopped in Kennett Square PA to see Longwood Gardens. The garden was very nice & quite large. The conservatory was excellent. We were there 2 hours. Rusty had lived near the garden from 1998 to 1991 at Chadd’s Ford PA. We saw his old apartment complex & office building from the road. We arrived at the Wyndham Philadelphia Historic District at 6 PM. Our room was nice, but had no view. We had dinner at La Locanda del Ghiottone, a small & very good restaurant just a few blocks from the hotel. We walked around that part of Old City for 30 minutes. There were many shops, restaurants & apartments.
4-21-16 (Thursday) We had breakfast at the hotel, which wasn’t good at all. Then we walked around Old City. We saw Betsy Ross House, Elfreth’s Alley (the oldest residential street in the US) Washington Square & Independence National Historical Park with the Liberty Bell & Constitution Hall. That afternoon, Rusty went to visit friends. Steve went to have a massage. Jordan walked around the Society Hill neighborhood for 2.5 hours. It was filled with well-kept 18th & 19th century row houses & historic markers similar to Georgetown & Old Town Alexandria. When Steve got back, they went to dinner at Cosi, a mediocre place with sandwiches, salads & pizza. Rusty was out for dinner.
4-22 16 (Friday) Jordan left the hotel at 8 AM. He walked to Rittenhouse Square through Midtown Village to City Hall in Logan Circle, the central business district. Philadelphia seemed much than Seattle. There were many more office towers & great crowds of people on the wide sidewalks. Rusty & Steve contacted Jordan at 10 AM. He took the subway back to the area of the hotel, where we met at the station, then took the subway back to City Hall. The train moved very quickly. Rusty & Steve went to the One Liberty Observation Deck on the 57th floor of a highrise building. Jordan waited on a bench in Rittenhouse Square. We walked around for a short time, then had lunch at Marathon Grill at 1 PM. It was really quite good. The restaurant situation was much better in Philadelphia than in Washington DC.
We took a bus to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It museum was wonderful. There were great quantities of art, antique household items & pieces of architecture assembled to recreate rooms & courtyards from other cultures. There was a Japanese teahouse & garden completely landscaped with live plants & a brightly-lighted ceiling. An Uber driver came to take us back to the hotel. We had dinner at a busy Italian restaurant called Spasso near the hotel. The day had been warm & increasingly cloudy. It was raining lightly when we left the restaurant, the first time we had rain.
4-23-16 (Saturday) This was the last day of our trip. Our flight didn’t leave Philadelphia until 5:45 PM. We had a buffet breakfast near the hotel. It was raining moderately. We put our bags in the rental car & drove across the Schuylkill River to the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropology & Archaeology. It was interesting, but not nearly as good as the Philadelphia Museum of Art. We saw artifacts from many cultures both modern & ancient. We had lunch at the museum. It had stopped raining, so we went to Bartram’s Garden, a few miles south of the museum, on the bank of the Schuylkill River. The garden was mostly woodland at the site of a farm more than 200 years old. The stone house & barn were nicely preserved. We were at the airport by 3 PM. We arrived in Seattle at 8 PM. We were home before 9 PM.
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