During holiday weekend, I spent a lot of time in DC. Over four days, I spent every evening downtown. FridayI went down with my mom and sister to see the Folk Life festival. This year, the topics were Food Culture, Oman, and the Forest Service. I didn’t like the exhibits as much as those from some previous years.
Saturday evening, I brought the family back downtown for a tour of the monuments, memorials, and the waterfront on bike. I think that riding bikes is the best way to see many of the famous landmarks downtown. The weather was perfect for being out on a bike. The only thing that could have made it better would have been fewer people blocking the sidewalks.
Sunday night, I went to see the dress rehersal of A Capitol Fourth on the steps of the capitol. I got to see Barry Botswick, Gloria Estefan, Sharon Lawrence, The O’Jays, and Ronan Tynan. Gloria Estefan and the Beach Boys were the headline acts, but for the dress rehersal, the part of the Beach Boys was played entirely by musicians who were not yet born when the real Beach Boys burst into the music scene. Gloria Estefan was excellent, as were most of the other performers. They had some technical issues between O’Jays songs, so they were cracking jokes with the audience. Overall, it was an excellent evening and a fun time.
Monday night, I met up with The Gathering to watch the fireworks. The location where we told people to meet was fenced off because “that’s where the fireworks land.” We ended up getting equally good seats between the reflecting pool and the Lincoln memorial. It was a fun evening–even the reorganized Metro system with all the lines the wrong colors and my mad dash across the Memorial bridge on foot to get to the Arlington Cemetary metro station.
