Re-entry

We're now back in the deep fog of summer in San Francisco -- in fact, Marty is off climbing again on one last run to the Sierra before school starts -- but there was one part of the trip that I didn't want to leave out.

When we flew out of Buenos Aires (in the CRAZIEST airport situation I have ever seen, if my Spanish and Google-gibberish-translation didn't make that clear: lines and lines and lines and lines... turns out Marty is a rather impressive queue-jumper when absolutely necessary), I flew to DC. Marty flew through Atlanta, so he couldn't join me on my somewhat last-minute stop to visit friends and family. Instead, he went to his parents' and (how did you guess) to the Sierra to climb.

When I arrived in DC, I realized suddenly how appropriate, if unplanned, it was to have a moment to appreciate the capital, and see some of the most famous sights of my own country. And it was a delight to visit family and old friends after being so far away for so long.

And, of course, I was pretty excited about potable tap water.


Yes, I took a picture of a water fountain: it seemed to me to symbolize all that is good about the public trust

I thought I'd be exhausted upon return, but I found that I really wanted to hike around and see the sights here in Estados Unidos. So I trooped through the Capitol (got swept up into an uninformative tour but it was great to see the interior) and the Supreme Court building, and wandered dreamily through the gorgeous Library of Congress. And with the help of an icy lemonade, I braved the sweltering sun and walked the length of the Mall to visit and read the entire Lincoln Memorial.


The Capitol: imposing under a muggy sky


A San Franciscan and Baltimorean too


A model of the Statue of Freedom atop the Capitol: it may look dignified at first, but look at that bird


Hallowed halls: the Library of Congress


The quiet heart of the library, as seen through a small window for the Great Unwashed


A slightly surprising genre included in the library's lovely murals

I was lucky to be visiting friends who live just a short walk from the Mall; in fact, just a short walk from pretty much everything.


My hosts, Laura and Edgar, with their impossibly cute and mellow baby, Emmett


Relaxing at home with drinks of choice

Edgar thought I should take a picture of the NPR building; upon reflection, he was right. It was something I was very happy to come back to. (TV news, not so much: we miss BBC and Al Jazeera!)


Almost as important as public water

I visited just one of the Smithsonians, the Natural History Museum, which was full of visitors from other countries. It was a treat to walk through an exhibit on the ancient history of humankind with people from all over the world, musing on our common ancestors.

And of course I had to visit the National Botanical Garden. Despite its imposing name, it's rather small and is largely indoors, but it's a very pleasant place.




South American orchid

To my delight, I found the garden has a special area on Hawai'i -- no other state is called out in this way -- in recognition of the uniqueness of Hawaiian flora.



The botanical garden, the museums, the monuments and halls of government -- they were all free to visit. As I wandered through it all I felt enormously appreciative of things that are public.

The next day, I schlepped my enormous backpack over to DC's impressive train station -- fortunately it was a very short walk -- and after some initial confusion (you'd think I'd be pretty good at this sort of thing by now) I got on my train to Baltimore. It was nice to have one more train journey in this trip; to our disappointment, we rarely traveled on trains. Buses are far more common now, especially in South America, where many old train lines are just rusting away (though in Argentina, one possible presidential contender wants to restore the old train lines -- an exciting propect).

In Baltimore, I visited aunts, uncles, cousins -- and my mom, who actually flew out from Hawai'i. Without much lead time, my cousin Karen organized a big dinner full of summer produce -- in fact, the entire time I was there, I gorged myself on corn and tomatoes and peaches, oh my! It's fun going straight from winter to summer.


Family reunion! Everyone's happy after trying the coca tea and chocolate

My mother and I -- along with every child in the Chesapeake Bay region -- took a day to visit the National Aquarium. Despite the madd(en)ing crowds, and the fact that it's far from free, it's impressive -- how many aquariums include a small fauna-filled rainforest?


The jellyfish exhibit was a sobering demonstration of dying seas, where jellyfish predators have been fished to extinction; they're also better at surviving pollution and climate change. At least they're prettier than cockroaches.

Here we got to see some more South American denizens.


This may take a second to see: look for the caiman's shiny eye, just above water (like at Iguazu Falls, Argentina!)


A gorgeous scarlet ibis from northern South America -- we saw buff-necked ibises in Patagonia on our ill-fated Torres del Paine hike but these are their tropical cousins

Another high point of my Baltimore stopover was visiting my friends Cy and Rob. Embarrassingly, I have no photos of Rob, just lots of pictures of Cy and the dogs they were taking care of. I think they will be getting their own dog any minute now: they got very comfortable while dogsitting.


Cy clarifies a point while the dogs listen closely

Though Cy is originally from Hawai'i, she is now quite the Ballmer booster.



To test this bench-avowed hypothesis, I returned to California.