Our first day in Washington DC

The Sunday ride was successful, but I found no fake country roads in Louisiana that looked like Texas, seems like all we have here is asphalt. I don't think there's anything I can do about it. Louisiana will never be Texas, sorta sucks. 

After I shamed Fall with my words on Sunday, it decided to show up and cool off. We needed it to be real for September. I take full credit for getting in its face and saying to get on with it or shut up. It's currently 79.3 degrees and let me say hallelujah, thank you Jesus.

I'm currently winning at life like a boss with the blogging....working on this one, while I have others I'm working on as well. We shall see how long it lasts. Who knows, I might even have 10 posts in 15 days. It will be a new record for my current blogging abilities. But I shouldn't get ahead of myself.

It's very, very quiet around my house and I think it will soon be even quieter. That's all I can say for the moment. 

It's 6:05 and I just got back to blogging after a full day of moving all of my furniture and mopping every square inch of my den. I don't know what I was thinking. It was so much work and currently I don't even care that my floor looks a tiny bit cleaner than when I started. What I found over the course of the afternoon is the number of tiny spiders in my house is very disturbing and I don't understand why they have come to live here. I've squished so many today. It's a problem and am considering calling a family meeting about it.  

In the meantime, the temp plummeted to 77 and we are having our first taco soup of the fall. I'm ready for fall food, whatever that is, but it includes stew for sure. 

Now that I think I've caught up on my day, I'm posting my second installment of our DC trip. Our first stop was a new and different venue from what most people do. 

Lets go see where we went....  

On our first day in DC, we went to Teddy Roosevelt Island. No one but Owen had ever heard of it. It's an island sanctuary in the city where you can hike trails and get in tune with nature, and since it was Owen's number one place he wanted to see, and since he and John had never been to DC, we obliged them with Teddy's place first on the agenda. It was a morning trek that was actually quite delightful. We were #blessed with the greatest of weather while we were there. For June, it was cool and breezy during our trip and man was I #thankful for it. 

The piece of land was overgrown farmland transformed into the memorial for Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States. That sounds so official in my blog. He was a naturalist and was also interested in ecological conservation. The weirdest fact I read about him was that his first wife and his mother died on the same day in 1884. That's a pretty big blow.

Come see what we saw at Teddy's Island

This was our first Emma sighting in DC from the night before.

The boys went their way and we went ours. They were much more pumped about this stop than we were to begin with. 

There's Teddy in the background. Let me tell you it's very hard to take a selfie with a tall statue. I think I just did. Tell you that is.

There he is.

There we are all together, me, Teddy and the girls. 

After being there for a bit we appreciated it more than we did initially. 

My lovely daughters.

Emma decided to cross the divide. Did she do it successfully?

Of course.

I was amazed that this tree was still standing. 

Group selfie with Teddy!!

One more time.

Me and the boy.

This is me of course. And the reason, although embarrassing, will be told. 

I was trying....

To take a pic of.....

This....and didn't turn the camera around multi times.

It was a rookie mistake, even though I don't consider myself a rookie. But the reason I took it was because these airplanes were MUCH closer than they appeared. SO CLOSE!

Coming back from Teddy's place we rode by the Lincoln Memo.

That weird thing atop that car in front looks cartoonish.

It was actually a kayak juxtaposed by the Washington Monument....weird.

Next on the agenda was the National Cathedral and a pipe organ concert. I know. You probably don't think I'm grown up enough to go to a pipe organ concert at a church. And I see your point. Normally you would be correct, but I was super interested in seeing if I could actually pull off an adult attitude. 

This place does not fit in one picture.

It's impressive. 

Massively impressive.

After seeing it on TV many times, I expected it to be in a field all alone, with a long winding drive up to it. It is not. It's crammed in the middle of a neighborhood. I was pretty surprised.

Woodrow is in there. That would be Wilson.

It's a gorgeous place

I'm enjoying these gleaming lights in this photo.

At some point after the recital began, surprisingly, I began to get bored.

The problem being the tune selections were NOT in my wheelhouse. 

It was all very Vampirey movie sounding. 

I was hoping for more of a Here Comes the Bride themed concert. 

In case you didn't know it by now, that's the standard Owen selfie face.

Beautiful windows.

That circular stained glass window was dedicated in the presence of Queen Elizabeth. SO now she and I have been in one common place. Hmmm, isn't that something?

This is a statue of George Washington. 

Some facts about the Nat Cat...
Ronald Reagans's State funeral was held there.
Helen Keller is buried there.
So is Anne Sullivan.

Abraham

A couple more shots.

It's quite lovely and I was very mature and grown up the whole time. Well done me.

Not long before our trip, Antonin Scalia passed away and I wrongly thought his service was held at the Nat Cat. It was not. 

It was held here at Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington. That's a mouthful. 

And that was day 1 of our trip to Washington DC. There is so much more ground to cover and I hope to stay focused and do it. I'm hopeful I can. In the meantime supper was delish and I feel like I accomplished some stuff today. I give myself a B- on the day. 

I'm off to do a few more chores before bedtime, so have a good evening and don't anyone tell me to register to vote. I'm a grown up that's been voting since I was 18 years old. My first presidential vote was cast for Ronald Raegan in 1980. Lord if only there was another Ronald Raegan coming along. I don't need anyone or any advertisement to tell me to go vote. That's all I have to say about that. 

Ta peeps. It's all about the laughing cow cheese.