A gazebo or something on the grounds of the Castle & Park at Rosendael, to which we introduced you a couple weeks ago. One thing that epitomizes having more money and power than you really need is building lovely but mostly useless little side-rooms like this, and fountainy displays such as those you’ll see below, which were apparently wondrously appealing at parties. (They were an early example of semi-automated, animated fountains that spirted in patterns, assuming I followed the Dutch only tour guide’s narration well enough. Which, to my pride, I think I actually did.) Still, it’s lovely – note the eagle on top! – and I’m the parties were enjoyable for those invited.
I managed, my final morning in DC, to explore the Smithsonian Institution’s remarkable gardens, which run between some of the museums and around the “castle,” its first building from the 1840’s. Mercifully, though the shutdown began the day I arrived in town, there were sufficient funds for the museums and gardens – which I’d never even taken time to notice, on past visits! — to remain open for a bit more than a week. I truly hope that, even as so much change comes to how the central government of the US uses the many tax dollars it receives, that support for this national treasure & pride will remain firm.
Prismatic sunshine from skylights and other windows at DC’s remarkable National Museum of the American Indian, which I managed to visit early last month.
That was 5:21am on May 21st, as the sun was still moving further north; it passed back through this building on its way back south, about July 21. I was out of town then so I missed it. As I miss the sun almost entirely these days, since we’ve reached the period of the year where it doesn’t shine through on this north side of my apartment, but only for a short bit of the afternoon from my western and one southern window. Ah well. Below, you can see both how the building site across the street from me was progressing three weeks later, and how much farther the sun had moved north, by the 12th of June. I should remember to take a photo so you can see how far they’ve come on that construction – it’s moving fast.
(so much world, so little time....) 