Day 268/365 Best Job in DC

Especially on a windy 33 degree afternoon in December.

Today's happy trail adventure led to the Live Butterfly Habitat on the second floor, just ouside Africa and above The Elephant in the rotunda.

The entry looks like a sci fi space set, with an air lock that keeps the warmth and humidity inside. We needed timed entry tickets and if you're headed that way, Tuesday's are free.

Butterflies live an average of two weeks, so lots of babies are needed to constantly repopulate the habitat. Each butterly's two weeks are spent in what amounts to butterfly heaven. All the flowers and nectar they could ever want, and no predators.

Mist sprays out every few minutes, letting the butterflies float on the moisture and cluster on blossoms.

Humans are told that the butterflies like to land on ledges and the floor. We were told not swat at them, even if they land on heads or bodies (and they did), and before leavinng we had to check ourselves, in case anyone hitched a ride.

My favorite pic...alll golden and glowing...

When this one flies, it exposes the inside of its wings - bright opalescent blue,edged in black...

The volunteers that work here use soft brushes to move the butterfliies away from departing humans. They field questions, guard the chrysallis', and release a daily crop of new butterflies.

Best job in D.C. hands down.

Day 267/365 Road Trip....Crime and Punishment

It's not every vacation blog that opens with a shot of Ted Bundy's volkswagen, but our family is special that way. Today's itinerary includes serial killers, bones, forensic labs and my ecstatic daughter.

First, courtesy of the Crime and Punishment Museum, a bit of family history. Here you see Jessie's James' gun and the torn scrap of Confederate flag he always carried with him. Also shown, his slate notebook he carried in his coat pocket (Lunch-1 pm, Rob bank 3 pm, evade sheriff 4-6 pm, Remember milk and bread on way home...). I say family history because one of my great aunt's married Jessie's cousin, and was so taken with the idea she promptly named her son Jesse James. As a result he developed a wild side (no surprise there huh?) and ended up driving his motorcycle off the edge of a West Virginia mountain. As far as we know, he was not evading the sheriff (at least not that time).

Found this original 1930's cartoon style map of Chicago, noting each gang's territory: Capone has the largest section. Did they print these to give to tourists?

And the museum has Capone's silverware, and his hotel key.

Ever see Goodfella's? It's the true story of mobster Henry Hill. Now he's retired and considered something of an artist. Last Christmas, I surprised my daughter with a handmade bullet knife made and signed by Henry Hill. Probably not what everyone wants to find under the Christmas tree, but again, we're that way.

I did my senior thesis on serial killers so it's a topic I'm familiar with (and fascinated by). This is Albert De Salvo's knife he allegedly used while he was working as the Boston Strangler. I say allegedly because he was never actually convicted, and there's a lot of confusion and questions regarding his invovement.

And then there's this piece of hand painted baseball memorabilia -signed by many of the greats including Jolting Joe DiMaggio. Then they found out the artist was John Wayne Gacy, and a little of their enthusiasm disappeared.

My daughter in her element -never mind a trip to the mall -all the girl wants is her own coroners office.

Lacking that, we wandered over to the Museum of Natural Science and their incomparable forensics lab.

Currently they are investigating early colonial burials in Jjamestown Virginia. They've found bones....

more bones....

more bones

and the best of all bones, a man and his dog.

We're thinking of staying for another day. Too many bones to count.

Day 266/365 Road Trip Day 2

This is what vacations are like when you have a child who's into military history.

First you spend the morning at the Holocaust Museum. (No photography allowed, so no preview for you -just go. It's amazing.)

After that, you spend the afternoon briskly walking to all the war memorials on the western end of the Mall. You walk briskly because it's 35 degrees, and your face is frozen in place.

But in spite of your eyes being frozen open, you still notice little corners of monuments you never noticed on previous trips.

Of course, sometimes you skitter to a stop on the icy cobblestone and wait while your child (the one interested in military history) takes pictures of a squirrel.

After remembering to stop and look up friends from the old days just so they know you haven't forgotten them...

You trudge up the steps to see the big guy.

Pausing at the top to realize that this is your umpteenth trip to DC and you still haven't been able to get tickets to the Washington Monument.....and you have approximately a mile to walk back to the Metro station.

Big Guy is still there, impressive as ever...

But have you ever noticed these murals, set up over the Gettysburg Address, in the wings of the Memorial?

And just to the left of the Gettysburg Address is a plain bronze door, unmarked in any way. Go through it, and there's an elevator. It only goes down one level, right into a small Lincoln Memorial museum.

My favorite part was this little alcove filled with multiple screens of the March on Washington and Dr. King, with audio of his speech playing as you watch the changing photos.

There there's the Little Guy, forerunner of the actual sculpture upstairs over your head.

And some of Abe's best words (and most prophetic I think, living where I do)

Afterwards, with numb feet and blue fingers, we trudge appropriately towards Korea, having by this point some small inkling of how soldiers felt over in that frozen muddy cold wasteland.

This is a war memorial that gets up close and personal - you can see the lines in the faces of these battle-weary soldiers. Sometimes out of the corner of your eye, they seem alive.

Wary looks for snipers, the crunch of boots on ice, the crackle of the radio -it's all here.

All that "glory of war".

And the American soldier that gets sent to do the fighting for the old men in the suits.

Day 265/365 Road Trip

This was the scene early this morning. One of our empty rural roads that eventually (3 hours later) gave way to....

the traffic outside of Richmond, which gave way to...

spaghetti interstates with traffic running at 75-80 mph....

the famous Phillip Morris smokestack (the tobacco rep in me couldn't resist)....

flying trucks....

all found along this road.

Our final destination and at least for the next four days...

we're being spoiled.

But we still checked for bedbugs on account of there being an epidemic of the little suckers...

Tomorrow -the Holocaust Museum and every freaking war monument on the Mall. My daughter is planning the itinerary.

P.S. For those of you I said I'd be able to contact through FB - never mind -for some reason it isn't working and so you will have to hold those lovely thoughts till I'm home again.

Day 264/365 More Appalachia....

Pocahontas County, West Virginia, photo by Wyatt Green

"I remember the drive to West Virginia from the Pittsburgh airport, the impossible corkscrew of the roads and the dented iron railings that lined them. I remember how dense the leaves of August were, how dark it could look in the holler even at noon. I remember the metallic scent of land raped by industry and how it rattled your teeth. I remember bony dogs running free down the highway, clotheslines strung heavy with overalls, the sound of gravel under the tires, the cool of the air, the supple dapple of the light, and how my grandmother's voice rose and sang like a bell above it all as she sang on the drive home, the piercing white clarity of her song lending the whole worn scene a delicious flavor, a purpose.

"I wanted to go anywhere my grandmother was, because my grandmother sang songs and made men blush and fed me graham crackers with honey and showed me how to walk in heels and how to braid my hair and how to be more than I thought I was in the world.

"Grandmother, my braid is uneven!"

"A man on a flying horse wouldn't see that."

"From her, I learned how to tell when a cake is cooked, how to cock my head to appear interested in someone else even when I wasn't, how to make macrame plant holders, how to tell a joke, and, during one brash moment in a truck stop ladies' room, how to smoke gracefully.

"Exhale like you're bored. And look up. Always look up." *

A friend asked me this evening, in a moment of miscommunication, "Your grandmother is still alive?", and in that moment I was suddenly and painfully reminded that she is not. I hate those moments. And I am never prepared for how much I miss her.

*Excerpt from Beauty Before Comfort, by Allison Glock, published 2003.

Day 263/365 Welcome to the South

We live in the South. Upper South. Today the first snow of the season is falling.

It's really coming down and we're suppose to get an accumulation up to 2". Probably won't be here long. (And having lived in Minnesota, where 2" of snow is called "summer", we're snickering a little).

However, now we live in the South. Upper South. And that's the reason it's snowing like crazy and ...

Our neighbor is.....

Mowing his lawn. Cause that's what people do here, on Saturday, year 'round.