Kyle, the boys, and I just got back from a five-day vacation to Washington, DC. “Vacation” may be too breezy of a word for our experience, as the only time we spent relaxing was on the airplane to and from Reagan National Airport. In brief, here is what we did:
We arrived on Tuesday afternoon and had lunch on the banks of the Potomac in Old Town Alexandria – a historic community founded in 1749 and still home to over 200 structures built before 1820, and also our Airbnb – before heading into DC. We spent several hours at the Spy Museum, a bonkers multi-story exhibition filled from top to bottom with a gazillion artifacts collected and owned by intelligence historian and author Keith Melton and his wife, Karen. My favorite item was a 1960’s prototype of a pair of fake testicles designed to be used by downed pilots to conceal an escape radio. From the museum we walked to dinner and then walked to the Washington Monument and then walked down to the Reflecting Pool and then walked to the World War II Memorial and then walked to the Lincoln Memorial and then walked back to our car and then drove back to Old Town and then walked into the Airbnb and fell onto the beds because the time was 12:30 AM and we were exhausted.
On Wednesday, we had coffee on our front porch while the boys slept off the 900 miles we had walked the day prior. Once awake and rejuvenated, we drove back into Washington, DC and headed to the National Air and Space Museum, where I learned, in part, 1) the Wright Brothers had to embark on a publicity tour of sorts in the early years so that other less-successful-but-more-visible inventors didn’t usurp their fame; 2) the Wright Brothers held a number of patents and tried to patent air travel, but were thwarted by World War I when the federal government decided no one could own air transportation; and 3) a piece of wood and fabric from their Wright Flyer was taken to the surface of the moon by the crew of Apollo 11 in 1969 to connect man’s first flight with the first human exploration of another celestial body. Then we had lunch. We ate at the National Museum of the American Indian and walked through the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden on our way to our final two museums of the day: the National Museum of Natural History and the National Museum of American History.
Here was my favorite fact from the National Museum of American History: “During surrender ceremonies, British and German troops marched out of Yorktown between lines of American and French soldiers. Refusing to recognize the American as the victors, the vanquished soldiers fixed their gaze on the French troops. Recognizing the insult, the French played, ‘Yankee Doodle.’”
We also saw a pair of Mr. Rogers’ sneakers. Those sneakers were right down the hall from a whole exhibit of political campaign name-calling bric-a-brac going all the way back to John Adams and Thomas Jefferson and if that subtle situational irony was intentional, then bravo, Smithsonian.
That night, we had dinner in Old Town, followed by cookies in Old Town, and then bed in Old Town.
On Thursday, we spent the morning at Ford’s Theatre and the Petersen House, which is the apartment house across the street from Ford’s Theatre where Lincoln was taken after he was shot. This was the stop I was most excited about because my sister, dad, and I toured these two places 30 years ago and it was so memorable that the three of us can recount the experience as if it were yesterday – and this ended up being the stop that was most disappointing for me (the boys liked it, though; so, great, I guess) because the Theatre was closed for renovations and the house doesn’t have anything in it anymore because the artifacts have since been sent to other museums. It was just two empty rooms, a fake bed, and an engraved office nameplate that read, “President Lincoln died in this room at 7:22 AM on April 15, 1865.” In the 30 years since my last visit they did add a large museum detailing his death and the following trial (plus a gift shop), which is what the boys liked. For my part, I was grump-faced the whole time and wouldn’t let Kyle buy a magnet in the gift shop. Then we had lunch.
My sucky disposition was revitalized by the National Archives, which ended up being my favorite museum in DC and where we saw, again in part, the Magna Carta, the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the 19th Amendment, and the Emancipation Proclamation. Our 11-year-old spent an extensive amount of time with a docent learning about the authorship of the Declaration of Independence, including the facts that Thomas Jefferson bred geese for their quills because he did so much writing and he tried to slip a jab – or, rather, a bigger jab because the Declaration of Independence isn’t exactly an English love letter – at King George into the Declaration and his fellow countrymen made him remove it.
We had enjoyed the National Museum of Natural History and the National Museum of American History so much the day prior that we decided to spend the rest of the day back at those two museums to make sure we hadn’t missed anything – which, it turns out, we did. For example, I found a spelling error in one of the museum signs. From there, we walked to the Capitol, and then walked to the Canadian Embassy, and then walked to dinner, and then drove back to Old Town; again, exhausted.
We weren’t able to sleep in on Friday because Fourteen’s Number-One-Absolute-Must-Do for the trip was a visit to Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland, and we needed to get up and get going to make that happen…but not before stopping at Arlington National Cemetery to watch a wreath-laying ceremony and the changing of the guard and for me to have a little cry because it was very moving.
Fort McHenry’s claim to fame is that it was the site and the flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The flag is now in the National Museum of American History – here’s a fact: that flag is now preserved by a million layers of glass in near darkness, but back when my sister, dad, and I saw this flag 30 years ago it was actually hanging on the front of a building – and the fort is now a museum and historical site.
I can’t get into all of the stories of Fort McHenry because this is already too long and the Fort lived a lot of lifetimes but I’ll tell you my biggest takeaway, not just from the Fort but from the entire trip: the minute George Washington left office was the minute that Americans began fighting over whose opinion was right and whose opinion was stupid. Francis Scott Key’s grandson, for example, was arrested for criticizing Lincoln and forced to shutter his newspaper. Here’s Frank Key Howard’s quote displayed at Fort McHenry: “The flag which he had then so proudly hailed, I saw waving, at the same place, over the victims of as vulgar and brutal a despotism as modern times have witnessed.” Change out those names for whatever President and whatever location and whatever date you want and you have 250 years of American politics.
We flew home on Saturday…but not before spending our final six hours in Virginia at Mount Vernon. Mount Vernon was the prettiest place we visited and we probably could have easily spent another six hours there – there are two museums, the mansion, and a dozen or more points of interest like a slave memorial and a fishery (did you know that 40-60% of Mount Vernon’s profits came from fishing and its slaves and indentured servants caught 1.5 million fish every spring?) – but it was hot and Mount Vernon was BUSY and, most importantly, our flight was leaving so we had to go.
I have more to tell you but I think I’ll save it for next week (here’s a teaser: poop cup). We have returned to the drier air of the Midwest with sore feet and a long list of museums and historic sites for a future trip out east. All in all, a very successful Kosior family vacation.
Kyle took the photo of me above at Fort McHenry. It is entitled, “It was hot and I was tired.”
This week on North Dakota Today, we talked about Kyle Jarvis, my Nice Person of the Week, as well as a team of Fargo students who took their love of science all the way to nationals. (Valley News Live)
Here’s the first paragraph of my latest column in the Grand Forks Herald:
There is nothing more North Dakotan than neighbors showing up for one another in times of need — and no community showed up more recently than Beulah, North Dakota, last weekend after 80 mph wind gusts snapped trees, tore through roofs and knocked out power around the area.
Staff Sgt. Irvin Ellingson has returned home. (Grand Forks Herald) (KFYR TV)
While the show itself may not be new, for the first time ever, the Grand Forks Historical Society hosted the Marilyn Hagerty Peony Show. (Grand Forks Herald)
I love the fact that this made the news. (KFGO)
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