The Canadas
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Winter 2001 News Updated August 11, 2002 |
Spring Break in WashingtonAfter leading a trip to Philadelphia for Teaching Fellows across the state, I joined the Teaching Fellows at my own university this spring on a trip to one of my favorite places, Washington, D.C. Lisa, who was pregnant with Will, decided not to go, though she would join me for more ambitious trips to New Jersey and Boston in the spring. |
March 5-8, 2001HighlightsNational Cathedral © Canada 2001 |
Washington, D.C.March 5-8, 2001: Educational travel is starting to be a hobby of mine. Last summer, I took a group of North Carolina Teaching Fellows from across the state to Philadelphia. This year, over spring break, I hooked up with the UNCP Teaching Fellows for a trip to Washington, D.C. We boarded a bus in Pembroke around 6:30 a.m. on Monday morning. By 1:30, we were at the National Cathedral in Washington. I remembered some of the Cathedral from our last visit nearly 10 years ago. What I didn't remember was the spectacular beauty of the stained-glass windows. My favorite is the one to the extreme rear and on the left as one faces the altar. Something about the red in it is particularly brilliant. I had forgotten some of the details of the cathedral, as well. It was begun in 1907, and the first service took place in 1912. The building was not completed, however, until 1990. Today, it is the second-largest church in the United States and the sixth-largest in the world.
National MallI started Tuesday with a moving experience: a jog on the National Mall. I got up around 6:30, cleaned up, dressed, and walked about five blocks to the Capitol. From the Capitol steps, I looked both up to the magnificent dome and down at the sprawling mall below, then took off. On a spring day, a run down the mall can be exhilarating. On the left and right are enormous stone buildings housing some of the world's finest paintings and sculptures, famous airplanes, the Hope Diamond, the Star-Spangled Banner, and thousands of other treasures. You can't see any of it, but with some imagination you can feel it. What I felt on this morning, however, was mainly cold--lots and lots and lots of cold. Leaving the hotel, I had heard the desk clerk say, "You can't go out like that. You'll freeze." Must have been the shorts. What she didn't know is that I also was wearing a thermal shirt and additional shirt under my sweat shirt and that I almost never wear anything but shorts when I jog, even on 30-degree days. What I didn't know is that it was not a 30-degree day. Thanks to what seemed like gale-force winds, it felt like a sub-zero day. I saw perhaps two dozen other diehard joggers while I was out, but everyone seemed to be wearing gloves--everyone but me. Before I was a quarter way through my route, my hands were stinging. Nevertheless, I tried to take in some of the sights along the route. After passing the various museums on the first half of the mall, I gazed up at the towering Washington Monument and then, a little further along, took in the stately Lincoln Memorial and the long reflecting pool that stretches before it. After climbing the memorial's steps, I enjoyed a few intimate moments with Lincoln--something one can do on a freezing morning before 8 a.m.--and thought about what he did for this country. As anyone who has seen the statue here can testify, the sculptor perfectly captured Lincoln's grand character--his intelligence, his devotion, even some of his sadness, I think. I then turned around and saw what Lincoln sees, sitting there all day every day: the Washington Monument and a hint of the America that stretches beyond. Finally, I descended the steps and finished my run, heading back up the mall and winding up at the Capitol, where I climbed the steps once more and took one more look down at the mall. But for the cold, the run is a relatively easy one: a generally level 5.25 miles. After breakfast, the Fellows and I began our day at Ford's Theatre, where we heard a dynamic presentation on Lincoln's assassination from a fine park ranger. Although I had visited the theatre a few years ago, I learned a few new things during this presentation. Our next stop was the National Archives, where I saw a moving exhibit called "Picturing the Century: One Hundred Years of Photography from the National Archives." Among the scores of photographs on display, only a fraction of the more than 17 million photographs managed by the National Archives, were a handful I found particularly remarkable. One captured a dozen or so immigrant children on Ellis Island in 1908, and another shows a boyish American soldier in Vietnam in 1965. After joining some of the Fellows for lunch, I spent perhaps my favorite hour or so of the trip at "Piano 300," an exhibit on the history of pianos in the Smithsonian International Gallery. In addition to seeing some fascinating displays on the complex mechanics of pianos and hearing snatches of piano music by Rachmoninoff and others, I saw a number of extraordinary instruments, including an 1892 Steinway grand, an 1865 grand piano manufactured by Steinway rival Chickering, and an 1876 Weber upright. Along the way, I learned about the fascinating history of the piano, from its invention by Florentine Bartolomeo Cristofori around 1700 to the piano dueling of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and a rival later in the 1700s to the celebrated recitals of Franz Liszt in the 19th century to the rise of Asian piano manufacturing in our own age. Finally, I wound up my afternoon on the mall with a stroll through the Freer Gallery and the Museum of African Art. For a taste of local nightlife, we went next to Georgetown. The cold weather kept most of the Fellows inside the local mall, but I went for a walk along M Street, shopping a little and taking a brief detour to enjoy some of the delightful rowhouses in the neighborhood. After browsing at a local bookstore, I ate a delicious dinner of caramel chicken at Miss Saigon, an award-winning Vietnamese restaurant on M Street. We ended the day with a brief tour of Washington at night--a special treat for me since I mostly have experienced the monuments only in the daytime.
By our fourth and final day in Washington, the weather was not nearly as cold. I started the day with a morning job on Capitol Hill, where I saw a number of charming row houses. The highlight for me was the birthplace of America's "March King," John Phillip Sousa, whose "Stars and Stripes Forever" is one of my favorite patriotic tunes. After checking out of our hotel and eating breakfast, we visited Arlington Cemetery. Because I had been there two or three times on previous trips, I didn't feel compelled to visit the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and other famous parts of the cemetery. Instead, I took in one lesser-known site, the relatively new Women's Memorial, and hiked back up to one of my favorite spots, Arlington House. Standing in front of the house, which belonged to Robert E. Lee before it was confiscated by the government during the Civil War, I took in the spectacular view of Washington across the Potomac River.
We wound up our tour with a trip to Mount Vernon, George Washington's home on the Potomac River. I had been there before, but I could go again and again, if for no other reason than to stand on a high bluff gazing down at the winding Potomac and then up at Washington's majestic home. I enjoyed the trip at least as much as the students, probably more. The only things missing were Lisa and Essie, though they were in my thoughts. I hope next time to bring them along. |
Our
next stop was the southwest corner of the Mall, where we visited some of the
monuments. After a brief return visit to the Lincoln Memorial, I walked
over to the relatively new Korean War Memorial and then to the 
Our
third day began with a visit to the 
An Early Spring Picnic
March 11, 2001: Although I grew up in Indiana, I love living in North Carolina. Days like this are one of the reasons why.
In Indiana, winter is usually still dragging on in March. For five months, the people there have had to wrap up in coats and hats, stare at overcast skies, and maybe even scrape ice off their windows. The worst part is that they know conditions will linger for another month.
Today, only 11 days into March, however, spring arrived in Laurinburg, North Carolina. Actually, it made a brief visit or two back in February and disappeared, and it may very well disappear again for a few days or even weeks. But today had all of the ingredients of a glorious Carolina spring day: a blue sky, temperatures in the 70s, green magnolias and pines, and gentle breezes.
A perfect day deserves to be honored, and we did so with an afternoon outdoors. We packed up the whole family--including our new dog, Bagel--and headed over to the St. Andrews college campus, where we fed the ducks, ate a picnic lunch, flew a kite, and just relaxed with the sun and breezes. Of course, no day is exactly perfect. Bagel chewed through her leash and got loose, then later escaped again, leaving me to chase her a quarter of a mile. The kite fully refused to fly for at least a half an hour, and Lisa and I struggled with it while Essie insisted on helping. Still, it's hard to see the glass as half-empty on a day such as this. We just made some adjustments: I drove Bagel home and left her inside the house. I picked up the assembly instructions for the kite and gave them to Lisa, who fixed one of the components. Soon, we had our kite in the air, and Essie was able to fly it. The sun was still up, and the air was still friendly. The day, which had begun perfectly, ended perfectly, as well.