Whirlwind Visit to DC

Yesterday morning Mary and I drove down to DC to visit Peter. It's 325 miles each way; we got there just before 2pm yesterday, and came back home today. I had never made this drive before, so after scouting out various options, I decided to do everything in my power to avoid New York City. It worked out great, and the drive was a really good geography lesson for me and Mary. My understanding of that part of the country's geography has always been very murky -- what with the squiggly coast lines, the inland water ways, the rivers, and the non-geometrical state borders -- I think it is rather confusing. To get there, we traveled through six States and one District, which is amazing for such a short drive. How did we get there? Glad you asked! We drove basically west from our house, crossing the Hudson River in New York's Westchester County (just north of NYC) on the Tappan Zee Bridge (which is a beautiful crossing and was the biggest surprise of the trip). Once across the bridge, we continued west for about 15 miles, then turned south, which allowed us to keep ourselves a good distance west from NYC. We drove down the middle of New Jersey on the New Jersey Turnpike, then picked up I-95 south and took that all the way into DC. It was simple and we had virtually no traffic either way, which was thanks to our routing, as well as the luxury of being able to travel on a weekday and avoiding commuter times. We enjoyed getting to drive through new territory. This morning while my navigator slept, I made one mistake, which didn't cost us miles but which took us right by Philadelphia -- not on the route. As I was worrying about whether it was costing us time (it wasn't), my now-awake navigator reminded me we wouldn't have gotten to see the skyline, ballparks, and waterways of Philadelphia if I hadn't -- and she was right! After getting a tour of Peter's apartment (we liked it a lot!), having a quick lunch, and running a couple of errands on campus, we hopped on the Metro to visit the National Museum of Natural History, where Peter interned this summer and where he'll be working this fall. The entomology department at the museum is one of the world's largest collections, with over 35 million specimens. There were rows and rows of these storage vaults, and you can see in the photo that each vault has rows and rows of drawers of specimens. The entomology department is on three floors, so the bugs add up. Just be glad these bugs are here and not in your house or flying in your yard! Peter introduced us to the researcher he worked for this summer, as well as the researcher he'll be working for this fall. We got to see his work station in the Hymenoptera unit (can you believe I remembered that word?!), and he showed us the product of all his work this summer -- drawers of teeny tiny parasitic wasps, mounted on teeny tiny pieces of paper with teeny tiny writing. (Are you impressed with my use of highly scientific descriptive language?) If you can zoom in on the above photo, you'll get an idea of what I'm talking about when I say teeny tiny. After visiting "Peter's museum," we walked next door to the American History Museum, and visited Julia Child's kitchen. Peter told us he's been there lots of times, but he again enjoyed it with us. It was great and Mary and I loved it too. Over the winter I read My Life in France, which is the book that the "Julia" portion of the new Julie and Julia movie is mostly based. If you want to learn more about Julia Child's life, I highly recommend the book. It's easy to read and so interesting. This is me and Peter outside that museum, with our backs to a building that I am completely unable to identify.

Back at Peter's apartment, we delivered him his birthday present, which is pretty obviously a bicycle. He loved it. It wasn't a surprise, but that didn't damper Peter's enthusiasm. Here he is taking his first test ride.

We got to meet many of Peter's friends and even go out to dinner together. Here they are at dinner. What a nice group of kids. (I hear they read the blog, so I have to say good things about them!)