It's been a while since we visited the museums downtown. After parking near all the courthouses in Judiciary Square we had lunch in Chinatown, a few doors down from the former boarding house where John Wilkes Booth supposedly plotted the Lincoln assassination.
Since we hadn't fully explored the National Portrait Gallery, I decided we should go there first. We started at the temporary exhibit Dancing the Dream. I was very interested to read little tidbits about the likes of Balanchine, Baryshnikov, and Farrell, and now I feel I must find a book about American Ballet to read.
The round painting is a study of what was to be painted in the rotunda at the US Capitol building
A landscape by Albert Bierstadt
This portrait of a girl is a photo reproduction made by winding
a single black thread around a grid of small nails
A replica of the memorial in Rock Creek Park, for the wife of Henry Adams,
who committed suicide by drinking chemicals used in photography
Since it was a calm Sunday afternoon I asked if we could give the Natural History Museum another try since every other time we've been it's been the crowds have been unbearable. This time we did the geology and gems exhibits.
Igneous rock crystals, the same that make up Devil's Tower in Wyoming
Rocks that glow in the dark, rock exhibit made to look like a mine
(a small boy asked his mother "are we inside someone's stomach?")
We decided to call it a day and walked past the seasonal ice rink in the sculpture garden on our way back to the car.
