DC Trip 2023 - Day 02

Chuck Berry's Cadillac.  

Chuck Berry had style to spare.  By changing the phrase "Colored Boy" to "Country Boy",  he made the song "Johnny B. Goode" a universal classic that has been covered many times by great guitar players.  I wish I could have seen him live on stage, doing his "duck walk" while playing his guitar as only he could.

And this sets the stage for today's destination....

RQS and I had tickets to arrive at the National Museum of African American History at noon.  But first, we had to have breakfast before going into Washington.  So we went into the lobby where breakfast was available, and found a better spread than the "continental breakfast" provided by some hotels.  In addition to the typical assortment of cold cereals and make them yourself waffles; there were "to-go" bags containing bagels, spread and fruit; as well as pre-made omelettes, breakfast meats, and hash browns.  Yum!  It was good enough to dissuade us from going to the 24 hour diner down the block.  (We ended up going there for desserts, but I'll mention that in a later post.)

It was bright, sunny and cold when we went to DC.  But we got off at a station near the midpoint of the National Mall.  This meant that we'd do a lot of walking before reaching the museum about 30 minutes later than planned.  Unlike our last visit, we planned at the top of the building and worked our way down.  Our first stop was the section of the museum dedicated to blacks in entertainment. One could easily get overwhelmed by the historical artifacts contained here - and we spent most of our time in this section before moving onward.  From there, we visited another section which covered the history of Blacks in our armed forces.  Here is where history became sobering.  But I won't discuss my feelings here. At this point, both of us were tuckered out.  So we went downstairs to grab a bite to eat before finishing our museum visit for the day.

After a rest in our hotel room, we decided to go out for dinner around 9 pm.  The only restaurant we knew of was a sports bar / restaurant named for a former football player (Joe Theisman).  So we walked the 2 blocks in the bitter cold (it felt that way) to get a bite to eat.  Sadly, it was way too noisy there to enjoy a good conversation, and the food left a bit to be desired.  (It wasn't bad.  But it wasn't worth the money we spent on it.)  Luckily, we only had a short walk back to the hotel before we could go to bed for the night.

National African American Museum

 

The above is a picture of RQS standing in front of the Point of Pines Cabin at the National African American History Museum.  Given America's history of treating Blacks as second class people, I feel that this museum is a "must visit" for all Americans. 

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RQS set up the agenda for this trip.  The schedule for our first full day in DC, Sunday, was a visit to the National African American History Museum, followed by a dinner "somewhere".  There was an exhibit at the Arts and Industries Building we wanted to see yesterday, but we were too tired to see it when we arrived.  This morning, we didn't bother waking up early enough to see this exhibit, and proceeded to walk the length of the mall to reach today's museum by 12:30 pm.

Upon entering the museum, we proceeded to the second floor and started viewing exhibits.  Most of the exhibits on this floor focused on artifacts in the 20th century.  This included women in professions such as midwifery, people in sports, and other artifacts related to the "black experience".  It took us over 1 1/2 hours to make it through half of this floor before we decided to have lunch.

After lunch, we went to a larger exhibition (I think permanent) which took up 3 lower levels of the building.  It showed how "Blackness" and "Whiteness" was not a big issue in Western society until European nations started to colonize the Americas and use Africans as slaves.  (I'm not doing the exhibits justice.  You'll  have to see it for yourself.)  From there, the exhibition showed how blacks were brought to the Americas, how they were treated once here, and how slavery affected American society - even after slavery was "abolished" in the United States.  By the time 5:00 came around, we were exhausted, and we went back to the hotel to rest for a while.

Later that evening, it was time to eat, and we made it to U Street.  Unfortunately, we selected an Ethiopian restaurant which once served good food with lousy service.  This time, it was mediocre food with lousy service.  Both of us wanted something sweet to eat afterwards, so we ended up walking a while before finding a Jeni's ice cream shop.  And this was an unexpected blessing, as there was a line out the door.  This meant we'd likely enjoy the ice cream we were about to have - which we did.  It was a nice way to end a great day....