What is there to see and do in DC when you do not have a schedule and agenda? Lots! See my last post for a few ideas and scroll through this post for some new ones.

Last weekend was my first weekend off in over a month and I high-tailed it to DC to visit my college roommate. In my last post, I shared some ideas for places to visit. On this trip, I visited a few new places. On Saturday, we hoped off the metro at Gallery Place and started walking. We passed the FBI building on our way to our first stop, The Willard. We went in to see the hotel’s fancy Christmas decorations (and to pretend that we had money to even afford being on the premises). The hotel has towering Christmas trees and lots of twinkling lights. We caught glimpses on the ballrooms down the main hallway – beautiful!

Then we read some of the historical quotes at the nearby Freedom Plaza on our way to the Old Post Office Pavilion. The Old Post Office has been bought by Trump and the businesses in side are having to move and close out to make way for his daughter’s hotel plans. Kathy and I got $2 crazy sunglasses in a closing business to wear as part of our day-long photo scavenger hunt. We also went up the elevators to visit the outlook in the Tower – which offers a 360 view of DC.

We also ventured to our usual stop, the National Gallery of Art, to see two of the main exhibits in the east wing. Up in the “Tower” room, we viewed large scale works by Kerry James Marshall. His use of extensive symbolism and dramatic colorful brush strokes is exceptionally captivating and really provokes thought when you learn each painting’s story. I encourage you to learn more about his work and how he uses his art to address the historically harsh treatment of minorities in the United States.

In our quest to find the restroom in the east wing, we found these abandoned futuresque phone booths that have had their phones ripped out and yet still have seats and phone books. Kathy’s still posture in the middle room, to me, really felt like I was looking at a mannequin in a storefront or a sculpture installation.

We briefly visited the Air and Space Museum to stop in one of the exhibits, but did not really stay that long. Our other Mall stop was the Hirshhorn so we could visit the balcony room and see the large scale linear and geometric paintings on the wall. I thought that Kathy’s sunglasses went well with the pieces there.

The Hirshhorn’s Instagram account “likes” this next portrait:

We had a FULL day on Saturday – walked miles and miles, ate lots of food, and had a night out with friends. On Sunday, we slept in a little and then got breakfast at a retro diner on Connecticut Avenue. Kathy and her roommate bought their Christmas tree at the church by the traffic circle and then carried their tree home – walking the full 1.5 miles with tree in hand! We discovered that carrying a tree down a busy DC street is a good ice breaker for meeting people. I drove home mid-afternoon and that concluded this crazy DC adventure. Always looking forward to the next!

I am hoping to be a bit better about blogging over the next couple of weeks. My daily schedule is so irregular that I easily get behind on sharing. I hope to start up, “Try This! Thursday,” posts again and also soon share some holiday couple portraits. A messy storm front is post-poning a portrait session I had scheduled, so I am not sure how soon I will be able to share new photographic content. If you would like email notifications regarding new and upcoming posts, there is a “Follow Blog via Email” option on my Contact page. (A huge thank you to those of you who have already subscribed! You are amazing.)

Thank you so much for stopping by today! What do you like to do in DC?