G is for Great Falls

Really, the only redeemable aspect of my Number One Son being four hours away at George Mason University, is the fabulous excuse of being able to re-visit my favorite Northern Virginia and Washington D.C. destinations, and “by the way” stop for a visit to see his handsome face (and bring cookies and clothes)!  This past weekend we drove up to see him, and to visit Great Falls National Park, a favorite site from high school choir gatherings many years back.

The Potomac River, which we saw earlier in the summer placidly winding its way past Mount Vernon’s lofty bluff, starts out in West Virginia and Maryland on its course to the Chesapeake Bay.  After cutting through the Blue Ridge Mountains at Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, the river rolls along until fourteen miles upstream from Washington D.C., at a place called the Potomac Gorge region, the river violently changes level 60 feet in the half mile stretch called the Great Falls.  This is the “fall zone,” where the river moves from the Piedmont’s erosion resistant stone and into the sandy soil of the coastal plain of the Atlantic Ocean.  The Great Falls are the steepest fall line rapids in the United States.  Enormous boulders and jagged stretches of metasedimentary rock jut up across a chasm with 50 foot walls making for great drama, and danger, even with the water level substantially lower than I’ve seen it in the past.

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Boulders are strewn along the hilly shore line providing opportunity for those who like a rock scramble to climb around, although one must resist climbing near the falls.  A variety of walking paths border the picnic area, one of which traverses rocky terrain that offers climbing opportunities but not as death-defying as the smooth slippery stones along the river.   Kayaks occasionally run the rapids, but you must make arrangements in advance, there is a $5,000 fine for illegally entering the water – it is quite dangerous – and the park service prominently posts pictures of regions where fatal accidents have occurred.  One can also make arrangements to rock climb on the walls of the Mather Gorge – the calm portion after the Great Falls!

The park was quite busy with tourists of many nations and all ages enjoying the overlooks, the paths, climbing rocks and gathering for awesome smelling cook-outs!  There is a Visitor Center with a museum, gift shop, and snack bar, but a tremendously disappointing restroom, the only downer on this National Park visit.

All things considered – a wonderful day!  The leaves just starting to turn, the sound of rushing water, the sky a deep and brilliant blue and our family together again, for a little while.

Links to Great Falls National Park Resources

Here is the page with Junior Ranger booklets (highly recommended)
Here is a brochure with a little more information about the Potomac Gorge
If you are interested in the geology involved in the fall line – here is a link to a geologic map.

Finally, this You Tube video by Inspiration Studio shows a few brave white water rafters, as well as other beautiful areas of the park, and amazing shots of water birds:

Thank you for reading!  We have been visiting quite a few waterfalls this year.  Here are a few other posts about our waterfall hunting!
Wonder and Awe at Linville Falls and Relaxing on a Rock at Locking Glass Falls.

This post is part of the ABC’s of Homeschooling link up at The Momma Knows, and the Blogging through the Alphabet link up from Marcy at Ben and Me.   I’ll also post this at Field Trip Fridays over at the HSBA Post.  I encourage you to click over to the link-ups and see what other homeschool families are doing!  One of the many rewarding aspects of homeschooling is the tremendous sense of community among homeschool moms, and the encouragement and helpful tips that are generously shared!

Grumpy Italian Men at the NGA…

Giuliano de’ (grumpy) Medici – Sandro Botticelli, Florentine, tempura on panel, 1478.

On a recent trip to Northern Virginia to visit to our dearly beloved and sorely missed #1 Son, GraceNotes and I took the Metro to the National Gallery of Art on the Mall in Washington DC.   The NGA is an enormous facility with two immense buildings connected by an underground gift shop, pricey Garden Cafe, and pricey Cascades Cafeteria.  (I have to admit the waterfall here is pretty neat!)   The West Building is an enormous, classically-designed building constructed of marble, which houses our nation’s permanent collection of American and European painting and sculpture.  The East Building is a President Carter era Modern building where Modern and Contemporary painting, sculpture and prints are creatively displayed.

To keep us both alert and interested,  I planned to focus solely on the Early Italian Painting of the 13-15th Centuries, located in the West building, galleries 1-13, since we will be studying this period later this year.  We saw a great abundance of religious art – beautiful Madonna and Child icons and paintings with gilt halos, a great variety of Saints receive their due on panel and canvas, and some very realistic painted wooden statuary (one of these was Grace’s favorite piece of the day).  But as we turned the corner on the 1400′s we saw a plethora of Grumpy Italian Men portraits! 

Portrait of a (grumpy) Man – Andrea Del Castagno, Florentine, tempura on panel, 1450.

These men, painted with a pout for posterity, were an unexpected and considerable source of amusement to my daughter.  I suppose we are accustomed to smiling portraits these days.  The only dour looking images we really appreciate are those of  the opposing political candidate caught in an unfortunate moment of frustration, arrogance  or other  unattractive expression.

While I was immersed in the intricate details of landscape, and the increasing use of perspective evidenced in colorfully patterned ceilings and floor tiles and draperies depicted in 15th C scene paintings, GraceNotes was all over the grumpy portraits…

“Can I borrow your phone (camera)?  I want to get a picture of that guy over there,”  she says while making a ferocious face. “He looks so grumpy! We have got to show Dad and Ian”

So, without further ado – here is a slide show of Grumpy Men of the Italian City States, photography by GraceNotes.

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This is a link to the 13th-14th C Italian Painting Page of the National Gallery of Art website – there are two online tours you can enjoy from this page!

 

Dipping Toes at the National Gallery of Art

We recently spent the weekend in Northern Virginia in order to visit our Number One Son at George Mason University.  Mr. Garner and #1  Son competed in a card tournament on Saturday, so GraceNotes and I decided to head to Washington D.C.

My daughter has a deep affinity for running water, creeks, streams and brooks
and a sparkling affection for fountains.

Imagine her joy…
after a really crowded 30 minute Metro ride,
and a hot walk across the crowded Mall dodging mobs of people
with enormous pink C-Span Book Bags
(there was a Book Fair going on at the Washington D.C. Mall)
and feeling slightly ambiguous towards Mom’s Plan
to visit the National Gallery of Art,
to turn the corner and catch a glimpse
of an enormous circular fountain
featuring 8 different jets spraying coolness into the light breeze,
surrounded by smooth stone benches shaded by trees,
with people of all ages casually sitting on the edge of the reflecting pool,
shoes at their side or on the pavement,
and their feet in the water!  

Really.  Permissible Toe Dippage! Yay!

While it is a somewhat different experience than the hushed, formal setting of the Early Italian galleries, I could not have asked for a better introduction to the National Gallery of Art!

We chose to enter through the Constitution Ave entrance to the Sculpture Garden, it’s actually across 7th St. to the West of the National Gallery of Art building.  The National Archives is to the North across Constitution Ave.   So in a few of the images you’ll see the Archive’s classic Greek architecture in the background.  We took a few photos of our favorite sculptures too.

The first is the Four-Sided Pyramid by Sol LeWitt.  The artist was alluding to the ziggurats of Ancient Mesopotamia, and interestingly enough that was what we thought, before we read the  brochure!  We also found ourselves enjoying the whimsy of the Thinker On A Rock, by Barry Flanagan.  And we have to show you the piece that Flanagan is paying homage to, or perhaps gently satirizing – Rodin’s The Thinker, who is pondering in the West Wing Sculpture Gallery at the NGA.

Here are a few resources for the National Gallery of Art:

National Gallery of Art

National Gallery of Art for Kids website

National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden

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Have you been to the National Gallery of Art?  What was your favorite work?

Stopping by Mount Vernon Plantation

For a time my family lived in Northern Virginia just 5 minutes from Mount Vernon Plantation.  I graduated from Mt. Vernon High School!  My friends and I would often use the far reaches of the plantation’s parking lot as a launching point for Saturday rides on the George Washington Parkway bike path which hugs the shoreline of the Potomac River.  But I only visited Mt. Vernon once in all that time, and all I really remembered was the tomb, and the weird smell of boxwood shrubs!  Still, with Number 1 Son going off to George Mason University this fall, I felt that I had neglected my duty as a sixth-generation Virginian, and a mother, by not taking him (and by default GraceNotes) to see the home of the first Virginian to serve as President!  On a recent trip to Northern Virginia for college orientation, we planned a side trip to Mount Vernon.

The tour begins in the Ford Orientation Center where tickets are purchased, maps are picked up, and a movie, “We fight to be free” is shown throughout the day.  The kids had a picture taken with the General and Mrs. Washington, and GraceNotes looked and looked and looked at Mount Vernon in Miniature, a perfect scale model of the home structure.  This link takes you to a PDF that tells the backstory of Mount Vernon in Miniature. 

The Mount Vernon in Miniature, complete in every detail, exactly 1/12 scale.

After seeing all there is to see in the Orientation Center, there is a short walk that takes you to the  Bowling Green Gate from which you can see the plantation against the backdrop of the sky and one enormous pecan tree!  The Mount Vernon Ladies Society requests that guests not take photos inside the house.  So I offer you  this link for a virtual tour.   The in-person tour is informative, if a little rushed.   I am notoriously slow in museums, I like to read everything, and linger over furnishings, carvings, details.   So, it felt a little bit like the Cliff Notes version to me.   The other Garners did not feel this way.  In fact, Mr. Garner noted that he is still affected by having stood in the room where General Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau planned the siege of Yorktown!  During his only visit home to Mount Vernon during the 8 years of fighting, George Washington, his staff and that of his French allies spread out in the unfinished dining room, and planned through interpreters, the battle which ended the Revolutionary War.   After soaking up the history, a quick step outside onto the veranda provides 80 panoramic miles of unobstructed view of the Potomac River – the same view that the General enjoyed – although the boats would have sported sails and carried supplies rather than rumbling motors and hot, sweaty tourists.

The actual house, while beautiful, and a testament to the General’s skill with self-taught trigonometry and architectural design, is only a part of what Mount Vernon actually represents.  Accustomed to thinking of George Washington as a General and a President, a walk through the Upper and Lower Gardens, and Fruit Garden and Nursery areas provides a glimpse of how George Washington thought of himself – as a farmer.  Inheriting farmland seriously depleted by tobacco farming, he studied farming techniques and pioneered innovations such as rotating crops to restore the soil dividing his acreage so that only two sections were in production while five others were resting, either being grazed, or growing greens that were tilled back into the soil.  He harvested dung quite deliberately, with outhouses and stables alike fitted with trays to catch solid waste.  He subscribed to newspapers all over the world to accurately price his goods, or hold them, until a better price could be had.  To see the layout of the current estate and grounds, which are only a small portion of the land farmed during the 1700′s – here is a link to an interactive estate map.

After strolling through the gardens and grounds, and gleaning a great deal of information from friendly and interesting docents, the Donald W. Reynolds Museum and Education Center offered air conditioning, gift shops and a well-designed, and engaging retelling of key events around the world during the life of George Washington.   Twenty-three galleries and videos cover every aspect of the man, the leader, the politician, and the farmer!  GraceNotes and I had prepared for the trip with a biography of George Washington, so it was pleasant to find some of the material was familiar, but we learned some new things too!  And the teeth are there!  But don’t get too close, and don’t take a picture, or a loud and persistent security alarm goes off.  (Hey!  We were not the ones responsible!) We finally sat down to a late, but delicious lunch at the Mount Vernon Inn.  To my delight Number 1 Son and GraceNotes stretched their palates with Duck and Sausage Cassoulet and Colonial Turkey Pye, rather than defaulting to the usual cheeseburgers and french fries…

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The entire Mount Vernon experience is funded solely through the Mount Vernon Ladies Society, a non-profit organization, so gift shop and ticket proceeds support the care and maintenance of the property.   We picked up a nicely done coloring book,  and Rules of Civility for the 21st Century.  (George Washington, at the age of 14  copied down 110 rules regarding polite and proper conduct, the content of which stayed with him throughout his life of public service.  One could only wish…)  For those who can’t visit Mount Vernon in person, the The Mount Vernon Plantation website offers a tremendous variety of resources for American History study.  Here is a link to free lesson plans and coloring pages. 

Have you enjoyed any historic field trips this summer?

Thanks for reading!  This post was included in the Field Trip Friday Link Up at www.AllBoyHomeschool.blogspot.com