Morgan and Me in DC: Days 3, 4 and 5

WARNING - LONG POST - HEAVY ON PICTURES AND WORDS. (for me anyway)

DAY 3 we woke up really late. Didn't get out and about until 11-ish. So we went for lunch and decided to go see the Phillips Collection, which was only a few blocks from where we were staying. As it turned out, we saw a used book store on the way, got delayed about an hour (between browsing and walking the books back to the hotel - we weren't going to carry them around all day in the 100+ weather). It turned out to be a really lovely walk. We passed by several foreign embassies (plus our hotel was across the street from the Tanzanian Embassy - kinda neat.) It was really interesting to see all the cars parked on the sidewalks. You gotta love Diplomatic immunity.

The Phillips Collection is wonderful. The collection is housed in the original Phillips house and another building that was added to hold the extensive collection, and host temporary displays. Duncan Phillips and his wife collected Modern Art. The museum is the First Modern Art Museum. Morgan and I enjoyed most of the pieces on display. She was THRILLED to see a Monet in person. And a Degas. I was thrilled to see Renior's Luncheon of the Boating Party.

There were a couple of temporary exhibits that neither one of us was too thrilled with. Can't remember this guys name, but I liked this piece of his. Most of the other artists works we kind of looked at them, tilted our heads and shrugged our shoulders. BUT, art is subjective. We just really didn't "GET IT" on some of those pieces. And I am usually VERY open minded. Robert Ryman might do it for you, but all I kept seeing was a wonderful starting piece for some really cool projects.

After that we were ready to head back to the hotel for a bit of a rest. We ended up staying in the rest of the day. We read, relaxed and ate peanut butter and crackers for dinner, and watched "Prince of Persia" on their pay-for-view TV. It was wonderful.

DAY 4 the alarm went off at 7. We showered and waited rather impatiently for Rosemary to get there. When she did arrive, we pounced on her. Literally. It had been far too long since our last visit. We hugged, exchanged some goodies and headed out for breakfast. We found a bagel shop that hit the spot quite nicely. Then it was off to the National Geographic Museum for the Da Vinci exhibit.

That man was something else. An engineer and an artists. WOW. It's a rare thing to find someone so adept in both sides of the brain. It was wonderful to see all the models made according to his drawings. And there was an exhibit on the discoveries they made on the Mona Lisa. She really is stunning in her original colors.

The National Geographic Museum has a cafe. Who knew? We ate lunch there. It was pretty good and reasonably priced. Once we had rested and cooled off, we headed back into the oven (aka outside) and made our way to the National Museum of Natural History via the Metro.

I love riding on the Metro. Yup, I am a suburbanite. And it shows. It was Boy Scout Day there. And they were all in uniform. I was very pleased that they were on their good behavior. (But not their teenage boy aroma. P-U. And the 105 degree weather didn't help at all.) Morgan is an animal LOVER, so this museum was on the agenda for sure. We found out that there is a Butterfly Pavillion with live butterflies. Naturally we had to go inside. We weren't in the place for a minute when a butterfly landed on Rosemary. She's so sweet, it's no wonder it landed there. That butterfly stayed on her the entire time we were in there.

One of the butterfly shoo-er's (Yup, offical name) had to brush it off of her before we left. It sure was attracted to that sweet lady. Morgan loved being in there. (Why, YES, this whole trip was about MORGAN.) She wanted to see the big Elephant in the rotunda, the dinosaurs and the saber tooth tiger. I wanted to see the Hope Diamond. It sparkles. Once we had enough of that, Rosemary opted for a cab back to the hotel, where we cooled down and ordered Chinese Food for dinner and a movie. Again, we rented "Prince of Persia". (Who could really blame us!?!?!)

Morgan and I really like this movie. I really, really liked the scenery. And we'll probably end up buying it when it comes out on DVD. Rosemary couldn't stay the night, so we had to say good night to her after the movie.

DAY 5 I woke up around 9. Showered and started to pack. We were going to have breakfast at IKEA. YAY. Ended up having lunch because we got there too late. Such is life. Traffic was kind of heavy. But lunch was good too. I got the bookshelves Danny and I have wanted for a while. He wanted one for his hobby room, and I wanted one for the front entry way to hold lunchboxes, backpacks, scarves, hats, etc... And some new dishes.For some reason I really like plain white dishes. Maybe because they are blank canvases waiting for the color and texture of the meals. LOL. And some containers to put on the shelves.A few hundred dollars and an hour later, we got back on the road. We did pretty well traffic wise. We stopped at Pierces BBQ Pit and grabbed some dinner for later.

By the time we pulled into the driveway, at home, it was 7 hours after we had left the hotel. It's normally only a 3 hour drive. We spent about an hour at IKEA and 15 minutes at Pierces. That leaves us in the car for 5 hours and 45 minutes. Almost double what it should have been. Boy were we glad to be home.

If you've made it this far, come on over for dinner. We're having Steak.