Filed under: Washington DC
I got a lucky half day in DC on top of my full day. I spent a lot of it working but I did get out. It was a nice day (by Minnesota standards) so I got a good walk in. In the morning I walked down to Georgetown, to the River, around the Lincoln Memorial and to the Jefferson Memorial – which is quite a long walk but through the Cherry Trees. My timing for that was perfect. The Cherry Blossom Festival started the day I got to DC. I bet it’s even nicer when it’s genuinely warm – but it was pretty and if you were down wind you could smell the blossoms.
I also got to walk through the Korean War Memorial. Of the war memorials I saw, I like it best. It showed the soldiers and they seem fairly realistic (from my deep knowledge of being on the frontlines). I think you have to get a glimpse of what the war must have been like to really appreciate the impact for those who made it home and those who didn’t.
In the afternoon I visited places. I went to the Portrait Gallery and saw some Warhol; I went to the Library of Congress and saw lots of cool things. Actually, you can’t really get access to the books and materials without a reader’s card.
Filed under: Washington DC
I am in Washington DC for a conference. The fun part is that to save a lot of money ($800) on airfare, I came a day early, which meant I got to spend a fun day in DC. I missed the family – but the advantage of being by yourself means you only go to see the things that you want to see. And I saw a ton.
I started with a morning walk to the Washington Monument, Cherry Blossom Festival, down to the Lincoln Memorial and past the World War II Memorial and the Viet Nam Veterans Memorial. It’s kind of amazing how just walk from walk thing to another. There are so many things to see. (History lesson of the day – in the Lincoln Memorial they have the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural Address on the walls – but there is one typo. Well I guess I don’t know if you can call it a typo when it’s etched in stone – but in the Second Inaugural Address [Future] was etched as [Eutur]. I hope you can see the in the picture.)
I retrenched at the hotel, did a little bit of work and went back to another walk to the Mall. I went to the Smithsonian – the Modern American History section. I saw Dorothy’s Ruby Red Slippers, the Muppets, Cat Woman’s costume, All in the Family chairs, the Star Spangled Banner, Julia Child’s Kitchen and more.
I walked around the Mall and visited the Hirsshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. You can take pictures there! I got pictures of art from Max Ernst, Andy Warhol, and others.
Filed under: St Paul
The weekend before the St Patrick’s Day parade was the Day of Dance. Aine had a good time participating as a dancer. Patrick also had fun directing a show as part of the festivities.
St Patrick’s Day was beautiful this week. It was chilly – but chilly in a year where anything but cold and snowing was good. We all went and marched in the parade. We marched with the Irish Gazette, which is always fun. We caught the older girls trying to appear as parade watched for a while, in the hopes that they would get some candy or necklaces. Aine on the other hand was happy to give out newspapers throughout the march.
I have to admit that the St Paul parade really doesn’t compare to the parade in Dublin – but it is always fun to see folks we know and that happens a lot more in St Paul.
Filed under: St Paul
During the spring break we went to see the King Tut Exhibit at the Science Museum with Uncle Billy. It was Way better than the Dead Sea Scrolls. Nearly everything was an original, not “just like the one” used in ancient times. We watched the Omni movie too and it was a particularly good one. It recreated the discovery of the tomb.
It’s kind of amazing to see the work of the kings back in the day – and to think that they started planning for their own tombs so early in their lives. That was a little strange.
We were all impressed with the amount of gold in the exhibit. And of course we enjoyed the rest of the museum as well.
Filed under: SE Minnesota
We wound our way home slowly after our quick trip from Wabasha. Wabasha is where Grumpy Old Men is supposed to have been filmed. Turns out that more happened around Wabasha than in Wabasha – but there are still fun Grumpy Old Men stuff. I got a few pictures.
We also stopped by Read’s Landing on the way home, which is a fun place to see eagles. They aren’t as up close as in Wabasha, in that we didn’t have binoculars, nor were there eagle handlers bring them to us. But it was cool. It’s always fun to see an eagle in the wild.
We had lunch at the St James Hotel in Red Wing.
The girls and Patrick are off this week for Spring Break so we’re taking a mini-vacation in Wabasha, Minnesota. There are two big draws in Wabasha. First Grumpy Old Men was supposedly filmed here. Turned out that not a lot was filmed here, but that was OK. (Part of Grumpy Old Men was filmed at the Half Tim Rec in St Paul, where I worked for years so I felt like I had that covered anyways.) The second and more important draw is the National Eagle Center.
Wabasha is less than two hours away from St Paul. On the way here, we drove through Wisconsin – and Pepin, the birthplace of Laura Ingalls Wilder. We had a nice lunch in Wabasha, we wanted to be quick because we knew the eagle feeding was happening in about 40 minutes.
The National Eagle Center was great! We met one of the founders through a connection Patrick had. She told us that. Wabasha has always been a place to see eagles – especially in March. The eagles hang out here because there’s a lot of open water because of nearby Lake Pepin – the lake pours into the Mississippi, the river gets wider – but it quickly narrows so the water trying to get into the narrowed river keeps open water on the wider part of the river. About 10 years ago they decided to build the center.
Five eagles reside at the center. Each has been injured in some way. Most were nurtured back to health by the Raptor Center but were not well enough to be released to the wild. Lily and Aine got pictures taken with Angela the Eagle. Then (because we knew the founder) we got a great picture with the whole family and the eagle with wings spread. So that was cool.
We got to watch them feed an eagle. That was gross but cool. The eagle got to choose between rabbit meat and rat. She went for rabbit meet. I think the rat would have been grosser to see. The rabbit looked like raw meat; the rat was recognizable as a rat. Lily and Patrick got to hold a falcon, wearing the falconer’s glove.
Last, but not least, there are telescopes and binoculars all around the place so that you can look up and down the river for the eagles. They said there were about 30 eagles around. Of course with my untrained eyes I saw more like a dozen, but it was still fun. What’s kind of amazing is that with the binoculars, you really could scan through the trees and see a lot.
I heard that Read’s Landing is another great place to see eagles. The plan is to stop there tomorrow on the way home.
Filed under: St Paul
For those who don’t know, I am a big Deadliest Catch fan. It started when we lived in Ireland. I don’t love Irish TV. (Those who have seen Killinaskully will understand.) And mostly Patrick’s mom had programs that she watched, which was fine. But on rare occasion, I got control and would always watch Deadliest Catch – the show about the crab fisherman off the coast of Alaska.
It is the best. They fish in all weather. Often you see that their shift starts by chopping a foot of ice off all of the equipment on the boat. Then they scoop up the big crab traps from the ocean. The traps are huge – big enough to trap hundreds of crab (on a good day). Can you imagine working with soaking wet everything in the dead of the winter? The mortality rate is frightening.
One of my favorite episodes is when the Time Bandit (a boat) sees a fisherman from another boat go overboard. Somehow they manage to get close enough to pull him from the freezing water and save his life. But you could see that the outcome is not always so happy with that sort of situation.
So you may wonder why I’m bring all of this up – well I met the Captain of the Time Bandit at The Liffey. We were out with friends celebrating Kathleen’s new job. We had a nice dinner and then moved over to the Liffey for a few drinks. I saw the guy right away but didn’t place him. Really I just figured I knew him from Billy.
Eventually I looked closer and mentioned that I thought he looked like the guy from Deadliest Catch. Well someone else at the table knew he was in town for the car show. Then I realized he was wearing a Time Bandit hat. So I went up and said hello. He could not have been nicer. It was Jonathan Hillstrand – the Captain of the boat who saved the guy who fell overboard.
I barely said hello with the camera when he was ready to pose and came over to talk to the whole table. I think he liked the idea of a table of folks from Ireland and Scotland – and that was our company that night. He was telling us about his friend and fellow fisherman who had recently died. But he also shared some salmon that his brother had smoked. He was great. Luckily for him I wasn’t able to corner him with all of my super geeky fishing questions. (Note: fishing is like cooking for me – purely a spectator sport.)
The funny aside – TMZ, the trashy entertainment news people were there too. I was very careful not to pick my nose or dribble, just in case they got a shot.
Filed under: Minneapolis
Rock the Cradle is a family event sponsored by The Current the non-classical music station of Minnesota Public Radio. It’s a free event held at the Minneapolis Institute of Art and Children’s Theatre. Apparently this is the sixth annual Rock the Cradle. We went a few years ago and thought it would be worth another chance. Aine invited a friend and Kate got dragged. It’s definitely an event for the under-tens. The good news today is that the event apparently come rain, shine or snow – because it started snowing at about 10:00 and hasn’t stopped.
We first stopped at the kids’ disco. There were live bands intermingled with DJ music. We caught Koo Koo Kango Roo and Bazillions. The younger girls enjoyed both. I think they particularly enjoyed when the parachute hit the dance floor. There were yummy, free treats in the disco and tattoos. The girls got several.
Next we roamed the halls of the MIA. The younger girls were super excited to see works that they have learned about at school, where they take part in Art Adventure. Art Adventure is a fun program; parents volunteer to introduce kids to art using work from the MIA. They were excited to see Shiva Nataraja and a Tzedakah box. Kate went to the MIA with school just last week so she was able to find the art quickly. I was impressed.
It’s really a nice mix of music and art. They have tons of free things for the kids, and who wouldn’t love that. But I was impressed that what seemed to be the most fun for them was dancing and seeing the art they have learned about it school.
Filed under: St Paul
Last night Aine hit the stage of the O’Shaughnessy Auditorium at St Catherine’s University. It was her Irish dancing debut. Aine started taking Irish dance lessons in the fall. It’s been quite a production. I’ve learned that Irish dance is about half dance and half glitz. We may be stronger with dance.
Aine was very excited and not at all nervous about dancing in front of hundreds of people. She did a great job. We opted out of the wig, which meant I had to curl her hair. We made Kate’s day by buying a curling iron. Then everyone was very impressed to see that I knew how it worked.
Luckily I was there is capture the rehearsal earlier in the day. We were in the nose bleed section for the real show. I posted both views below.
Filed under: St Paul
This week was the first and thrid grade music concert at school. You have to get there pretty early to get good seats. We weren’t early. Usually I can sneak in a decent video by standing near the door, but this time the doors were closed – so if you want to get a taste of Aine maybe you can play the video for the sounds and look at thre picture.
The fun part about a first grade concert is that you could see Aine’s head bop during half of the songs. Buffalo Gals seemed to be a particular favorite. We don’t get a lot of head bops with the pre-teen sisters.
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