Seems like you can’t come to DC without getting at least a glimpse of the White House. So that’s where we headed first. Top left is the North Lawn which faces Pennsylvania Avenue. The South view of it has the rounded portico, which faces the National Mall. I was able to get a shot of that later in the day, below.

On the left, a tribute to WWI veterans, with a small garden leading up to it, and the south side of the Eisenhower building in the background.

On the right, of course, is the Washington Monument.

It probably wasn’t that long ago – several years maybe – that I understood that “The Smithsonian” wasn’t a place so much as many places. There are 21 museums and a zoo that make up the Smithsonian system. And there’s a bunch of them along the National Mall.

I didn’t have any interest in the Natural History Museum until this morning when I learned that it held the Hope Diamond, the largest in the world. You can read about its storied history here; its estimated value is over $250mill.

It was on the 2nd floor along with the other stuff we wanted to see so we went straight to it.

And it is beautiful, famous for its size – 45.52 carats – and blue color. It was discovered in India in 1642 and has been owned by many, some say cursed, people – including Louis XIV and Marie Antionette as an example.

We saw a couple of other exhibitions at the Natural History museum but decided pretty quickly we were kinda done. It was hotter than the day before, we’d already walked over 6 miles in about 5 hours and decided it was time to go home. We rested there a bit before going out to meet a college friend of Ash’s and Erick’s that they hadn’t seen in 35 years or so. We visited with him and his husband for an hour then returned home.

Another friend, David, who Ash had met in San Franciso 10-12 years ago, came by for dinner. It was a casual array of salads from Whole Foods which we ate in Erikc’s dining room, which is (cool!) in the turret of his condo. That’s the 3 of them in the top pic, David on the right.

David brought a blueberry cobbler he had made last night, and we topped it off with some vanilla ice cream. I think just about everyone had 2 helpings of that. Scrumptious.

And that, my friends, is this trip. Tomorrow we are having brunch at Erick’s sister’s with her and their mom, and then Erick will take us to the airport for a 4pm or so flight. I’d started this trip with 3 days off before we left Sacramento, and having 3 more days of nothing at the end seems like just what the doctor ordered.

So I’ll take this opportunity to do some final thoughts, although there won’t be too many:

1. We loved being in NYC as always. We hardly left the Times Square area for the conference and the shows. With the exception of a couple of walks, the whole thing happened between 43rd and 50th Streets, and 7th and 9th Aves. That was unusual for us, but it worked well.
2. The conference was about what I expected and I’m glad I went, although probably don’t need to go back for another 5 years.
3. DC has been great. I’ve only been here 2 other times, both times just having one afternoon to visit during SHRM Leadership Conferences in 2004 and 2005. So didn’t get to see much.
4. I really enjoyed walking the neighborhoods we were in yesterday and today. It’s a very livable city, and I can’t believe how clean it is. Maybe that’s after 4 days in Times Square which is the filthiest part of NYC for sure. The comparison was stark.
5. I always enjoy being in historic places and there’s no shortage of that here. We will be back.

What’s next? We are grounded for a little while. We have a foreign exchange student from Portugal joining our household in August and that will keep us at home through his senior year of high school. But we’re excited about this new chapter in our lives, and have some great trips planned for later in 2025: Botswana in July, Bhutan in August, and the Amazon in December. We look forward to seeing you then!