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.

Summer's Almost Gone

The summer is over, and I haven't been running since May, although I have gotten into the District a bit and seen some places and friends.  Here is the bright summer sky reflected off the tranquil waters of the Haines Point channel across from the DC waterfront.

I recently went in for lunch with a couple of my former running buddies and we took a walk instead and went to the Ai Weiwei exhibit at the Hirshhorn Museum.  We've all fallen off the running wagon due to injuries but at least Katie, on the left, hikes miles and miles on national park trails out west where she now lives and Leah, on the right, plays ice hockey twice a week.

I went to Great Falls with a friend, and we hiked its trails and enjoyed views of the rugged falls on the upper Potomac River.  It's not the District but it is a nearby national park.

I enjoyed lunch of all the fixin's from a nearby BBQ shack with my former colleague Leah at a new waterfront park in DC near the Marina.  A running group came through and stopped to do calisthenics in the park before running off, which made us feel guilty as we ate our chicken and beans.