Drawing the year to a close

Here are some snapshots from my new camera from the summer.  I could have been more active, but it's the Trump era, after all, which drags all of us patriots down, but I did go to wine country in Virginia in July with a friend (I was sporting a "boot" for my achilles strain) and wouldn't you love to be an immigrant and own a vinyard like this, as seen from our outside deck enjoying a bottle of its wine as we talked with the South American owner who related to us his hardscrabble path to here.

In August, I went to the District early one Saturday morning with some out-of-towners who had never been to Washington before to show them the free sites.  I discovered that the museums don't open till 10 a.m. but we walked around the Mall until then and visited the Museum of Natural History where I immediately recognized its "landing page."

For the first time in decades, I took a tour of of the Capitol.  Here is a statue there of Chief Justice Roger Taney, who wrote the infamous and notorious Dred Scott decision, which ruled that slaves weren't citizens and that most African-Americans were property (chattel) and gave us the Civil War.  Thank God all ancestors that I have uncovered were Northerners who fought to overturn this travesty, at least one who paid the ultimate price; may Taney be doing well in Hell.

There are many Smithsonian exhibits that travel through DC, our locale formerly being the leader of the free world.  A friend and former colleague came to DC and we went on a walk that included a passage through a new exhibit at the Hirschhorn; we were accompanied by a former colleague who is a friend of hers.