Atlantic Beach, 2/9

  We drove from Charleston to Atlantic Beach. We had a nice day and evening with Michael. (Nancy was in Miami helping Julia to look at wedding venues.) First, the three us took a nice beach walk.

 In the evening, Michael made a lovely meal and Christina, Mike, James and Sawyer came over. Somehow, photos were only taken of Christina and Sawyer. Too bad.

   The next morning, Michael took us over to see the house that Christina and Mike are about to buy. It is a great little house only a few blocks back from Neptune Beach. They plan to add on in a year or so. It is in a nice family neighborhood.

 Then, we followed Michael to Vero Beach where he stopped en route before heading down to Lake Worth.

Charleston with Jo and Tom, February 7 & 8

   We drove from New Bern on Route 17 to Sullivan's Island. It was really our first warmish day.
 We stayed with Jo and Tom (and Archie, the standard poodle) in their lovely home on the beach.
    The first night, we went to Long Island Cafe and had a wonderful fish dinner. (Long Island was the original name of the Isle of Palms, nothing to do with Long Island, New York.)
     Jo made a wonderful breakfast both mornings of poached eggs on oatmeal that she makes ahead of time into patties which are then fried. We will definitely be adding them to our repertoire of recipes.
     On the 8th, Tom went out to John's Island. We took a lovely beach walk. A highlight was a flock of bluebirds which perched nicely enough and long enough for us to identify them conclusively, always a treat for us. Then we toured both Sullivan's Island and the Isle of Palms stopping on the marshy side and the ocean side. It was a lazy, wonderful day.

Mark, Tom and Jo at Long Island Cafe

     The second night we had a wonderful meal at 167 Raw, owned by Jesse Sandole, one of our former middle school students. It was just written up as one of the 10 places to visit in Charleston by the New York Times. It is small and does not take reservations, but we pulled strings with Jesse's mom, Jill and we were ushered right in. Jesse was there to see us and treated us to a complimentary dish of oysters. The food was amazingly good. Jo and Mark had tuna poke which was probably the highlight. Mark and Tom had tuna burgers which they really enjoyed. Barbara and Jo had delicious fish tacos and Barbara also had a haddock ceviche. We all pronounced it an extraordinary meal and Jo and Tom plan to return. Quite amazingly, there were two other former Nantucket students there that night, too. In such a small place, it was quite a coincidence.

Mark, Jo, Tom, Jesse at 167 Raw

Robert Anderson, Corinna Ramirez at 167 Raw

Mark and Jesse

    Mostly the four of us talked, talked, talked about politics. It was very good group therapy, I think, for all of us.

New Bern, North Carolina Feb 5, 6

  We drove on Sunday, the 5th from Washington, D.C. Leaving a city on a Sunday is always so easy. It was an easy trip; the last bit was on Route 17 which is not fast, but more scenic.
   We stayed at the Comfort Suites which is a little bit out of town, but a nice hotel and quite empty.
    The first night, we ate at MJ's in downtown. We both had ahi tuna and it was fabulous. Then we went back to the hotel and sat in the hot tub while we did a much-needed laundry. We settled down to watch the Patriots in the Superbowl versus the Atlanta Falcons. But, not being avid football fans, we fell asleep in the third quarter with the Patriots trailing by a lot. Imagine our surprise to wake up the next day and discover that they won in overtime and that we slept through a historic game. Darn.

The Masonic Temple. Anna may have taught here in her early days in New Bern.

   The next day we went to the library to research Anna Gardner. Barbara was here in 2004 on a grant and got information about Anna's time here during the early days of the Civil War teaching freedmen. But, it seemed as if Anna might have returned to New Bern before returning home in the mid 1870s, so we hoped to find some evidence of that. Barbara read microfilm records from the local and county school boards, as well as a few of the old newspapers on microfilm. The school committee records were surprisingly complete and she found no evidence that Anna returned.

New Bern during the Civil War

Northern soldiers in New Bern

   Mark focused on finding photos to put in the book. The librarian who helped us, Richard Green, was quite hopeful. He published a book a while ago with a lot of photos and told Mark where to get permissions for them.
    So, it was a fruitful trip. Barbara proved pretty conclusively that Anna did not return to New Bern and Mark found some good photos for the book, including a photo of school teachers of freedmen in their house. We suspect that Anna may be one of them, but will have to enlarge the photo more to make comparisons with other photos of her.
    As MJ's was so good that day before, we returned there for another meal! Then - a soak in the hot tub.
    The next morning, we took the Prius to a car wash to get the salt off it. That poor car is seldom clean.

A Day with Lizzy in Washington, DC, 2/4/17

  Today was sunny and brisk.
  We met Lizzy, former student and Stage Manager Extraordinaire, and now....good friend. We met her at Prit Khao, a Laotian restaurant in the Columbia Heights neighborhood. Miraculously, we got a parking spot right across the street and found Lizzy already there.
    The food was really terrific with different use of spices than, say, Thai food.  Barbara had monkfish wrapped in a banana leaf with vegetables to wrap in lettuce leaf. Mark had a sticky rice dish with Chinese sweet sausage. His other dish was crispy pork similar to chow mein. They were also lettuce wraps. We cannot remember what Lizzy had, although we all shared everything.
    Lovely conversation as we expected with such a bright and interesting young woman.
   Afterwards, we all drove to the grounds of the Soldiers' Home, set high on a hill on 251 acres. On the grounds is the Lincoln Cottage, a place to which Lincoln and his family often retreated. It had been used by the previous president, Buchanan, as well. During Lincoln's time the cottage had a view of the city and the Potomac, but trees and buildings have grown up since then.

View from the front of Lincoln Cottage; the photo does not do it justice.

   Lincoln spent 1/4 of his presidency in residence here. The White House was too hectic and too hot. The drinking water came directly from the polluted Potomac. So, he and the family spent extended summers in this house three miles from the White House. The cottage was also a place for the quiet the family craved so soon after the death of 11-year-old Willie.

Lincoln's Cottage

  When the Lincolns were there, the place was used as a hospital, a military camp, retirement home, and a national cemetery. It is still used as a retirement home for over 1,000 veterans. Because the grounds are still owned by the Soldiers' Home, visitors to the Lincoln Cottage are restricted to the cottage and the visitor center.

Mark and Lizzy in the Visitor Center

   We took a tour of the modest house where Lincoln penned the Emancipation Proclamation. The house itself is bare as the furniture the Lincolns used was brought from the White House and returned every season. Plus, it was used for many purposes afterwards including being a lounge/bar for the Soldiers' Home. It was designated as a National Monument in 2000 by President Bill Clinton and opened to the public in 2008.
    Then,we dropped Lizzy home. It was a lovely day and so nice that it was planned by Lizzy. Every day we have been in Washington D.C. we have gone to someplace we have never before visited and have learned a great deal.
    It is so appropriate to the times how we spent our days in Washington this year during the first two weeks of the Trump Presidency. How we spent our time felt like an antidote. We appreciated the Library of Congress for its storage of accumulated wisdom. We listened to the lessons taught by both Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, two men with prodigious minds. Both were dedicated to improving our country and who left behind important words and legacies.

Statue of Lincoln and "Old Bob" as well as Barbara and Lizzy

Lizzy and Barbara at one of the doors to Lincoln's Cottage

Original Soldiers' home in background and Lincoln's Cottage on the left

 

Frederick Douglass's house & National Gallery of Art

  Another chilly day. Damon said last night that we seem to bring winter with us when we visit Washington and today was no exception.

    We drove to the National Gallery of Art for a quick tour of the impressionists.

Mary Cassatt

Plaster cast of St Gauden's statue that is on Boston Common.

We forget the artist! Help someone!

Stuart Davis

  Then we drove to Anacostia to "Cedar Hill", Frederick Douglass's last home, where we took a tour. Anna Gardner, about whom Barbara is writing, visited there twice, once while Douglass was alive, and once with his widow when Anna stayed several weeks. It was cool to imagine her sitting on the front porch gazing out toward the Capitol Building, the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress and the Washington Monument. We tried to imagine which bedroom she was given.

View from Cedar Hill. If you enlarge this, you can see the Washington
Monument, the Capitol and the Jefferson Building of the Library of 
Congress, the dome to the right of the Capitol. The view 
must have been so lovely when Douglass lived here.

Cedar Hill, home of Frederick Douglass

Helen Pitts Douglass

Dining Room at Cedar Hill

  Then we went to Capital Hill Crab Cakes in Anacostia, a tiny mostly take-out restaurant. As it was already 2, they were out of crab cakes. So, Mark settled for a shrimp po boy and Barbara had a salad with crab in it.

 

A Day at the Library of Congress, Tapas with Anne & Damon

Today we ate breakfast in our lovely hotel suite and then walked to the Metro station at Foggy Bottom. Like two out-of-towners, we struggled with getting Metro Cards and loading the proper amount of money on them. In fact, we had to get help. Is it our age?

   Anyhow, we then went to the immense James Madison Building which is part of the Library of Congress. (The largest library in the world with the largest rare book collection) We were confronted with a maze to even get to the registration area for researchers. Then, we filled out forms, got our photos taken and were issued research cards. Everything went into a locker except for our phones, computers and chargers and eye glasses.

James Madison Building - Manuscripts, photos, music records are here for Library of Congress

   Barbara is tracking down letters written by Nantucketer Anna Gardner to Frederick Douglass. She has five, but hoped that there might be more. Her letters to him indicate a close relationship and she stayed at his home, Cedar Hill, on two occasions, once when he was alive and once with his widow.
   A very nice archivist helped Barbara and sent her to talk with another archivist, Dr. Adrienne Cannon who suggested a few other leads. Mark went up to the photos area and found a photo of Cedar Hill which he will order. Barbara found a photo of Helen Pitts Douglass and put in an order for that.
    We ate our packed lunch in the cafeteria in the building and then made our way to the jewel in the Library of Congress's crown, the Thomas Jefferson Building, built in the 1890s. It is quite surprising that we have never visited it before as we have visited so many of the wonderful buildings and monuments in the city.

Mark getting screened - Metal in his knee means setting off alarms.

View of Capital and Washington Monument from the steps of the Jefferson Building

   On display in the impressive lobby is one of three Gutenberg Bible's written on vellum. (The light was too low to take a photo of it.)

Ceiling, Jefferson Building

Lobby of Jefferson Building

Reading Room, Jefferson Building

Rotunda, Jefferson Building

   Then we took the Metro home, checked mail etc.
   We had a wonderful evening with Anne and Damon near their apartment in the Cathedral neighborhood. They are getting married on February 17 (my birthday!) and we couldn't be happier for them. They treated us to a feast of tapas at Barcelona. Yum!

Anne, Damon, me and Mark at Barcelona. Great conversation. A feast.

   A very good day.

 
 

Arrival in Washington, DC, 2/1/17

 An easy drive today from Edison to Washington, D.C.
 We are at the State Plaza Hotel on F Street near George Washington, D.C. We are in a HUGE suite.

Living Room

Living room looking toward dining room and kitchen to the right

Looking into bedroom

After settling in, we walked to Founding Farmers Restaurant, a farm-to-table restaurant. It was good, but not fantastic. Barbara had an ahi tuna salad and Mark had corn bread and chicken pot pie. Then we walked around the neighborhood, mostly in the university. We stopped at Whole Foods and got food for our breakfasts, some lunches and snacks.

Concord to Edison, N.J. (1/31)

 We left Concord in the morning and drove to Edison, New Jersey. We hit snow in Connecticut, which slowed us a little bit. We had little traffic and went over the George Washington Bridge which is always cool, even in the gloom and snow.

Yes, that's the George Washington Bridge

  We are staying in a very Asian neighborhood. (Comfort Inn) We walked to a Malaysian restaurant and had a very good meal. Then, we walked to a very cool Asian supermarket where we just browsed and were intrigued by the many spices and unfamiliar fruits and vegetables.