August 5 Friday
We seem to have got a late start today as the first pictures are from 3 in the afternoon on the way to
Great Falls Park.
I had never heard of
Great Falls until this visit.
The Potomac River runs over the
Great Falls through a gorge as you can see below in a pretty impressive sight.
Imagine if the river filled the entire gorge and was up to where I am standing.
What a huge volume of water.
And such a flood happens from time to time.
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| On the way to Great Falls Park |
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| Lots of labor must have gone into digging the canal and building the rock walls so the canal could get river traffic around the Falls. |
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| How far is it to the river? I figure it is at least 100’ below where I am standing and maybe more. Can you see the man next to the river about 1/3 up from the bottom and about 1/3 in from the right side? Now, imagine it being full of water up to where I am standing. |
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| The man next to the river is a bit easier to see in this pic. |
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| Imagine bank to bank water up to where I am taking the picture. |
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Past high water marks -- incredible.
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PUT PIC OR LINK IN HERE FROM WESITE
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| A past flood from National Park Service Website. |
August 6 Saturday
Drove in to DC via Rock Creek Parkway and through Georgetown. Had breakfast early in downtown and then hit the Smithsonian Museums. No traffic to speak of anywhere Saturday morning.
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| Rock Creek Parkway |
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| Georgetown view from across the Potomac |
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| One way to cross the Potomac |
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| And another way -- Washington Monument way in the background. |
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| Georgetown - not too much traffic first thing Saturday morning. |
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| Georgetown Saturday morning. |
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| Enjoyed breakfast here in downtown DC. |
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Infamous/famous home of lobbyists --
K Street
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First place we went after breakfast was to the National Air and
Space Museum.
It was pretty crowded and I didn’t pay too much attention to what exhibits I was photographing as everywhere you look or turn is another air or space craft.
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| Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis |
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| The Mall between the Air and Space Museum and National Gallery of Art. The "grass" is well worn and not so well watered either. There has been a drought, but the Parks Service budget could use some enhancement. |
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| “Tragedy” by Picasso 1903. I have had a print of this forever. This not so in focus – sorry. |
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Renoir “Girl with a hoop”
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| “Odalisque” – Renoir 1870 |
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| Henri Matisse “La Coiffure” 1901 |
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| Amadeo Modigliani 1917 “Nude on a Blue Cushion” |
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| Paul Cezanne “Peppermint Bottle” 1893/1895 |
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| Henri Rousseau “Equatorial Jungle” 1909 |
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| Pablo Picasso “Still Life” 1918 |
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| By El Greco 1614 “Laocoon” |
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| “Saint John the Evangelist” by Titian c.1547 |
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| Vermeer’s “The Girl with the Red Hat” 1665 |
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| Rembrandt “Portrait of a Polish Nobleman”. My mustasche has a ways to go. |
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| Rembrandt “Self Portrait” 1659 |
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| “Adoration of the Magi” Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi 1440/1460 |
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| Detail from “Adoration of the Magi” Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi 1440/1460 |
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| Not the Mona Lisa, but Leonardo DaVinci’s “Ginevra de’ Benci” 1474/1478. The note next to the painting says it is the only painting by DaVinci in America. |
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| National Archives building |
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| Into the Museum of Natural History with a few other mid-summer visitors. |
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| Amethyst from Brazil |
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| My favorite of all the minerals -- Garnet – the red crystal embedded in ore from Barton Mines. Barton is an ESNA - LaSarge customer and we warehouse and ship the refined garnet for them in the Los Angeles area. Later in our trip we visited the Barton mine in the Adirondack Mountains of New York. |
August 7 Sunday
We left DC today on way to
Philadelphia to visit customers.
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| Kudzu vine overwhelming all. |
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| I95 Northbound |
