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Washington, DC
Ain’t nobody on the road, ain’t nobody on the beach
We’ve already talked about three out of the four DC trips that I took this year. One was to participate in the Walk for Epilepsy, another was to see the terrific Bjarke Ingels exhibit at the National Building Museum, and the third was to get just enough miles to push me to silver status for 2016. We’re starting the last page of the 2015 Weekend Trips Slideshow with the fourth trip to DC which took place in August. We’ll start out slow with the dead face of Abraham Lincoln and Electronic Superhighway: Continental US, Alaska, Hawaii by Nam June Paik, both located in separate sides of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and American Art Museum building.
A hot August night was a great time to visit Nationals Park and, on my first time there, I was impressed. Those goofy giant president heads are more fun than they should be, and I got a Virginia ham biscuit sandwich that was exceptional, especially for ballpark food. The Nationals also put on a bit of a show, beating the Milwaukee Brewers 6 to 1, so a good time was had by all.
What do Abraham Lincoln’s head, a runaway Calvin Coolidge and (now) a great big box full of strangers and white plastic balls have in common? If you guessed that they’re all part of this trip to Washington DC, then you’re probably right.
This is The BEACH at the National Building Museum, a mammoth installation full of countless white plastic balls and way, way too many people. It was designed by a firm that unironically (or super ironically, who really knows) calls themselves Snarkitecture, and even with a reservation you’re going to find yourself waiting in line.
The actual ball pit inside The BEACH was a fantastic experience despite some drawbacks. One drawback was that it was physically exhausting to wade through the waist high ball pit, maybe because of all of the other people or maybe because that’s just what happens when you walk through a giant box waist deep in white plastic balls. Another drawback (which I already referenced a few times) were all those other people everywhere. While I did not get hit in the face or directly step on someone’s rib cage during my time there, I was kind of terrified that both were just going to happen. It was hard just to get a few square feet (I probably mean cubic feet) to yourself because there were just so, so many people everywhere. Still, I survived unscathed, confident in the knowledge that if I miss the next giant ball pit experience that I’ll be just fine.
This all over the place 2015 Weekend Trips Slideshow is finishing up at one last destination. We’re back in New York in Lower Manhattan, skulking around the Battery waiting for the sun to go down. There is a reason for this, and if you want to know now, just take a look at that first picture and you can get a pretty good hint at what’s coming up next.
This is (of course) Tribute in Light, a memorial that you’re only going to see on the night of September 11th. It (of course) represents the lost twin towers of the World Trade Center, and it’s a magical but (of course) depressing reminder that comes around once a year.
If one was a purist (I fear I am sometimes), than one would find a lot of faults with Tribute in Light. The first is that it’s in the wrong place and alwasy has been. It is now on the roof of a parking garage over the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel entrance, and even when it was first started, it used to be in an empty lot in battery Park City. The second problem is that even though the lights up close is evocative of the twin tower facades, it is way too small and should be about four times bulkier. Although if I’m being honest, if Tribute in Light was in the exact right spot and the exact right side, it might just break me seeing it. So with that in mind, I’m all for it being exactly how it is.
So after visits to Death Valley, Las Vegas, New Haven, Queens, the Bronx, Longwood Gardens, the city, Grounds for Sculpture, St Louis, Washington DC, Chicago and the World Trade Center, it’s time to say goodbye to 2015 and start wondering what random places we might visit in 2016. It could be anywhere. Anywhere…
