Washington DC

So I went to Washington on sunday Sept 7. It was awesome. I stayed at the Hotel Monaco, where the bed was like sinking into a cloud of cotton. Outstanding! I slept 9 hours both night. The hotel is a historic landmark and the ceilings were so tall. My favorite amenity in nice hotels besides the bed and bed linens? Glass glasses in the bathroom.

Monday was spent with the Grantham Prize awards ceremonies, where all the special merit recipients and the winners made presentations. That was really fun. We had a lovely cocktail reception, dinner and then engaging global warming discussion with some of the leading experts in their fields, including the CEO of Duke Energy, who was fascinating. I got to spend an hour in the Newseum, where they have a traveling exhibit on Gmen and the media. They have the actual Unabomber's cabin, which I found completely fascinating.





I spent a couple of hours one day in the National Portrait Gallery and loved it. Then on Tuesday morning I was fortunate to have enough time to walk down to the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum and see several traveling exhibits, including one on ocean photography and one on the Father of Ethnobotany, Robert Schultes, who spent 12 years in the Amazon in the 1940s and 50s. You can read more about him in a book called "Lost in the Amazon."

I had a meltdown the night before I left, it's overwhelming to me sometimes how much Heavenly Father has blessed this little girl who grew up on a farm in Chiefland. How thankful I am.