Viva Las Degas

So I am using the Blogger iPad ap and it is not easy. I can't load photos except to take them off Facebook and I can't figure out how to captions so all I have is a bunch of random photos. I will edit when I return home. below is Ms Maya before all her shots. I went with them Monday afternoon for her4 year checkup. Tall and thin.

I drove to Washington DC early yesterday...510 miles. As the Penn turnpike is expensive and full of construction, I will return a different way. I am staying with my friend Soulmate and his partner in the far NW section in a pretty neighborhood full of colorful crepe myrtle trees, one is pictured somewhere below. Real estate is so expensive that this 1800 sq ft house is worth 3 moose and squirrels.

I got up bright and early to run on the Capitol Crescent trail through dense foliage. It was 75 deg at 6 am and soon climbed to 95. High humidity too.  After a nice breakfast in the beautiful screened porch, we went downtown.  DC must be the prettiest American city..gardens and public art all over. We spent several hours in The National Gallery. they had Titian, Degas, and Wyeth special shows.

 

 My silly title stems from my friend's friend who refused to use foreign words or pronunciations. the Santa Ana winds in California he anglicized as Saint Ann winds.  So as a joke, we pronounced Degas to rhyme with Vegas even though Vegas itself is a 'foreign' word.  They also had a special exhibit about the Monuments men. They rescued Titians Danae pictured below. They have Da Vinci's Ginevra there, his only painting exhibited in the Western Hemisphere. Very Cool. Lots of my favorites aside from Degas: Van Gogh, Monet, Picasso, Renoir.....I hadn't been there in 30 years. The waterfall and the light tunnel connecting the 2 wings are pictured somewhere below.

Then off to the Capitol Hill Eastern Market to buy stuff for dinner and to have crab cake sandwiches with fried green tomatoes and spicy chocolate and cinnamon gelati.

I wish I brought my keyboard as this is so cumbersome. A good day.

Maya sitting calmly before her shots. It took a while to do the development assessment and the vision test needs to be repeated by experts though I think the main problem was she didn't know the name of the objects. She called the flag a star. But the flag had a star on it?

creoe myrtle outside the kitchen window. All windows had nice stained glass

light tunnel between East and West galleries of the National Gallery

I took a similar photo 30 years ago. Again, Nat Gallery

We joked that Microsoft should sponsor the Wyeth exhibit as every painting featured windows

Ginevra. She has a backside. Not protected by glass or anything and they told me I could photograph it

Titian's Danae: saved by the Monuments Men

East Market: for my first crab cake of many on this trip