Expedition 6: The Northwest Navigations

Journey 6 in the books! Our latest metro journey was great, and this time sent us to several destinations in Northwest D.C.. This blog is your narrative of another fun day in the nation's capital. Let's start from chapter 1...

Chapter 1: A Monumental Monument
Up EARLY once more, Trent, Cortland and I met up as usual at Largo and rode down to Smithsonian station. This time, we were assigned (with a partner) to each choose a POI in Northwest D.C., and our first chosen POI was the Washington Monument.

Approaching the Monument from the station!

Built in 1888 in commemoration of our first President, George Washington, the construction began in 1848, but lack of funds and the escalation of the Civil War slowed its construction until 1879. We were able to get free tickets to go inside and ride to the top, so once the whole group arrived, we headed inside. We rode the elevator (agreeing that the elevator shaft was scary) to the top of the 555 foot monument and peeked out the windows for a while. Honestly, I had no idea the Monument had an inside, but it was an awesome experience to be up there and see the Washington D.C. landscape.

Chapter 2: A "Spacious" Museum

After hanging in the Monument for a while, and listening to some fascinating information from the guide, we rode back down to the ground and began a short trek across the National Mall to our second chosen POI, the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

The squad outside the Air & Space

This was by far my favorite spot of the day; I've always loved seeing exhibits with fighter planes and the concept of space has always caught my interest. I think my personal favorite exhibit was the displays of the aircraft from World War 2.

A model aircraft carrier.

 There are actually two museums (one is in Virginia), but the D.C. location opened in August of 1946 as the National Air Museum, but as the space race heightened, it was renamed to the National Air and Space Museum. The place is really amazing, and we explored around for quite a while in the exhibits, gift shop, and even their flight simulators.

Models of the types of fighter aircraft you'd find on a carrier

 

Afterwards, we slowly made our way out (the gift shop was very distracting :D), and were on our way to Fuddruckers for lunch...

Chapter 3: Ben's Bountiful Bowls
The destination I chose with my partner David was Ben's Chili Bowl. We didn't stay long, but Ben's has history that goes waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back. 

I honestly have no idea...

It was founded in 1958 on 1213 U St when (not surprisingly) Ben Ali and his wife spent $5,000 to renovate the building, but it was actually built in 1910 as a silent movie theater. Later, it became a pool house as it was modified by one of D.C.'s first black detectives. It was actually founded right next to Lincoln Theatre (which was built in 1922). Ben's, however, went through rough times when racial tensions exploded in the 50's and 60's, but the popular restaurant survived in what was America's largest African American community. I'd only "Ben" there once before (see what I did there?), but the food was good, and I've always wanted to go back. My grandfather and his brother grew up in the area, and the restaurant became their childhood favorite.
After we wrapped up at U St, it was time to head to our final POI of the day...

The outside of Ben's on U St.

Chapter 4: Our Final Frozen Foray
Last up on our excursion was an outdoor ice skating rink near the National Gallery of Art. It seemed pretty popular; there was a HUGE field trip group there. I have absolutely no clue how to ice skate, but some group members decided to skate, so we decided to all hang there for about half an hour. Eventually we began splitting up to head home, so Cortland, David, Trent and I trekked back to the metro to head home.

Epilogue
It was a relatively short journey, so, sorry for the short-ish blog. It was still an awesome day, and I really enjoyed the Air and Space Museum and the Monument tour. I can't wait for the next journey next year, but now I'm just hyped for Christmas. MERRY CHRISTMAS, and until next time!

Another sweet view of D.C. from it's Monument

Walking past the Museum of Natural History

It looked like it was gonna fall on us!

Another pic of the model aircraft carrier

Expedition 5: Our Second Virginia Voyage

At the Torpedo Factory

Another journey in the books! Metro Journey number five took us through Alexandria in Virginia, and brought us to places with some awe-inspiring art, and fascinating facts. This blog is your ride through a rainy day in the Old Dominion State. All aboard!

Station 1: A Torpedo Factory and Some Articulate Artists
Another early morning wake up! I was up and ready to go before 8:00, and Trent, Cortland and I rode to the King Street station in Alexandria. We met up with our group and hopped on the bus to get to our first destination (not in D.C., maybe the title is misleading :D) , the Torpedo Factory. 

The group outside the Factory

It's an art center with amazing collections of paintings, pictures, jewelry, sculptures, archaeology, UNDERWATER PHOTOGRAPHERS, and a plethora more of masterpieces. It was named for its original purpose, which was for assembling torpedoes in World War 2. The Factory was made in mid 1941, but it evolved into an art center afterwards in the 1970's.

YEEEEHAH! RIDE THAT TORPEDO, MAN!

 Now, it hosts almost 150 artists, all of whom with unique styles to their works, and 82 studios. We were assigned to interrogate (just kidding, interview) 4 artists (each with a uniquely different trade), an African American artist, and one nicknamed "Poppi." After quite a wet walk to the Factory, we meandered around for a bit, checking out the first floor.

Posing in front of one of the torpedoes

 There were a lot of pictures of sailors and posters from the 1940's on one wall, not to mention several torpedoes. We got going upstairs to check out the studios, and after peeking into a few, we entered a photographer's studio, and began to inquire on his career at the Factory. His name was James Steele, and his passion was clearly photography. He fell in love with the art when he was 12, but pursued engineering in college, working in that business for 20 years. He returned to photography after that, joining the Torpedo Factory. We talked with him for quite a while, as he had some pretty cool stories to tell and well-refined pictures to show us. He'd taken hundreds of thousands of photos with his D100E 35mp camera (that's a really good camera); he would just take pictures at random of anything that fascinated him. It was kinda crazy how much work went into his craft, too. He'd been to Utah, overseas, and even underwater to make his collections, and it was an eye-opening experience.
Next, we browsed around and entered the studio of Judith Codey, who worked with wood prints. I didn't take as many notes as possible here, but her works were like paintings on wood. She showed us about half a dozen of her favorite projects, and demonstrated how she'd put down layers of different colors to make her pictures as fine as possible. She's worked at the Torpedo Factory for 40 years, nearly as long as its existence. I enjoyed seeing her displays for sure. Our next artist we interviewed briefly was Mrs. Marian van Iandigham. She worked with paintings, and had been at the Factory since 1974. 
We had a few more things to do in the Factory, and next up was finding an African American artist to interview. Unfortunately, there weren't any permanent members there at the time, and since our final artist, Poppi, wasn't there yet either, the group elected on heading to our next destination. On to station 2!

Station 2: Quite a Watery Waterfront, and a Freedom Museum
We were HUNGRY (or maybe it was just me, I had a small breakfast), but we wanted to knock out our POI's first, so we set out on a 25 minute trek in the rain to the Alexandria Waterfront Park. It was a nice park on the edge of the Potomac River. A freaky view of the foggy river (hence Foggy Bottom) and a group photo later, we began to make our way to our final destination.
Our final assignment was to visit the Freedom House Museum.

The display at the Freedom House Museum

 It had the most historical background of our POI's, as it was a slave trade hub where Solomon Northrup from the movie Twelve Years a Slave was sold into slavery in 1841. He was a free man who lived in New York, and when he was approached in a business offer by two white men, he accepted. Sadly, the men kidnapped him and sold him in a slave state. Northrup regained his freedom in 1853 and wrote the book Twelve Years a Slave. After another long walk to the Museum, we entered, and were greeted by Ms. Chatman. We explained how our class worked, and she individually shook our hands and proceeded to tell us about the slave trade that went through Freedom House. Back then it was one of the finest places to buy slaves back then, and the wealthiest men in the country would gather and haggle over who they wanted and whatnot. The actual museum was in the basement of the building, so Ms. Chatman showed us down there and left us to explore and take pictures. It was a very interesting exhibit with examples of what the slaves wore, mock posters from then, a small model of what the actual Freedom House looked like, and even a touch screen display with some detailed information. Once we finished observing, we went back upstairs to thank Ms. Chatman.

Alright, almost done, stay with me. By the time we were finished at Freedom House, it was around 1:00, and we had one more assignment back at the Torpedo Factory. The group still had to interview the artist "Poppi," who hadn't been there in the morning. Another rainy walk later, we hustled over to studio 226 to find Poppi. Sadly, she wasn't in that day though, but we got plenty of information about her art and career at the factory. Her actual name was Dawn Benedetto, and she worked with elegant beads and inexpensive jewelry. Honestly it looked like stuff we'd found back at Bedazzled (remember the "bedazzling business?"). She's worked at the Torpedo Factory since 1997 and clearly was one of their more upstanding artists.

Some of the beads crafted by Poppi

 











And that was about it for the day! Metro Journey 5 gave us all an insight to what Alexandria is like, and once again showed us the many understated landmarks you can find in this area. Stay tuned for MJ #6! Until next time, dear reader!

Art

ART

ARRRRRRRRRRT :)

And...art. I loved the place, though!