It will come as no surprise that Theodore Roosevelt National Park is chock full of TR history. (Fun fact: he hated being called Teddy. I also hate being nicknamed, so I felt that.) You don’t have to go far into the park to find places to walk in Roosevelt’s footsteps, either. You can do it just steps from the South Unit park entrance – right behind the visitors’ center, where Roosevelt’s tiny Maltese Cross Cabin is situated. (This isn’t the original spot; the cabin has been moved.)
The anklebiters are no strangers to Presidential residences. We have an annual family membership at Mount Vernon, after all. But the Maltese Cross Cabin is a little more snug than President Washington’s grand mansion.
I loved the rich, knotty, grainy wood of the cabin’s exterior.
And the interior! So cool to think TR touched these very walls.
We checked out his desk and letter-writing spot and joked that he must have sat there to answer Uncle Dan’s fan mail. (Theodore Roosevelt is my brother’s favorite president. I like him too, but my favorite president is a bit more recent. President Obama forever!)
The table all laid out for a hearty meal after a tough day of galloping around the badlands on horseback…
And check out that stove! And the teapot – and waffle iron! How cool.
I will say that as cozy and inviting as the kitchen appeared, the bedroom – not so much. That bed looks uncomfortable, no?
We didn’t spend much time here – it would have been hard to do so; you could see everything there was to see in the span of five minutes. But what a fun little stop, a good way to stretch our legs before we headed out on another long drive, and a nice glimpse into the life of everyone’s favorite Rough Rider.
Next week: it’s time to head back south, but we have one more hike in TRNP on the way!
The more time I spent researching things to do in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, the more must-dos I came up with. It seems this park is just jam-packed with iconic hiking trails – including the Petrified Forest Loop Trail, a ten (or maybe more?) mile loop that passes through expanses of prairie and a valley full of petrified tree stumps. Doing the full loop trail was not on the agenda this time – our small hikers are good for a maximum of four miles at a time – but according to the trail reports I was reading, the really cool petrified wood was located approximately 1.5 miles into the longer hike. Now, a three-mile out-and-back… that we could do.
The trail begins on the prairie. There are broad steppes in every direction – we saw a few wild horses grazing atop one of the buttes.
The trail reports cautioned that the prairie part of the hike was a little boring, but you had to press through it to get to the cool petrified wood. I disagreed – I didn’t think the prairie was boring at all. I kept thinking of Laura Ingalls Wilder in On the Banks of Plum Creek, describing the prairie as being full of little rounded hills, dips and hollows – it’s so much more than just a stretch of flat grass.
At least one person in our group did find the prairie section boring, though. Hiking is not Peanut’s favorite activity. I told her to channel her inner Laura Ingalls. That meant nothing to her, because she has not read the Little House books. (She did read the My First Little House series years ago, when she was a preschooler and kindergartner – but it had been a minute.)
Eventually, we reached a trail junction. Our research had indicated that we could take either the North or the South trail and end up at the petrified wood, but the South was a bit faster – so we went that way.
Just as Steve was starting to wonder out loud when we’d be seeing the petrified wood, I spotted some unusually shaped boulders immediately ahead of us. “I’m pretty sure… now,” I replied.
We walked over a little lip in the trail and then started to scuttle down the bare rock face into a valley that was dotted, unmistakably, with petrified tree stumps. It does not get cooler.
We wandered around the petrified forest for almost an hour, taking our time poking into every nook and cranny, examining every piece of petrified wood, and calling each other over to share in all the cool finds.
What a cool hike this was! I’ve found that when hiking with anklebiters, it does help to have a goal. The goal doesn’t need to be a petrified forest – it can be something as simple as a snack picnic at a good turnaround point. But it’s nice to occasionally be able to deliver something with real WOW factor, and the Petrified Forest Loop certainly had that. The kids were suitably impressed. And as we hiked back to the car (scanning for wild horses – saw some – and bison – another strikeout) I started mulling over a trip to Petrified Forest National Park, which I imagine is… like this, but on a grander scale. I can’t say that was high on my list of national parks to visit before, but after this hike it certainly moved up the ladder a few spots.
Have you ever found petrified wood on a hike?
Next week, we check out another one of TR’s Dakota residences. This one has walls!
Theodore Roosevelt National Park is comprised of three separate units: the South Unit, the North Unit, and the Elkhorn Ranch Unit. Staying in charming Medora, we spent most of our time in the nearby South Unit. The North Unit was a long drive away, so we quickly decided it wasn’t going to happen on this trip – maybe another time. But we did want to check out another part of the park, so on our second full day in North Dakota, we piled in our rental car and drive two hours to this small park unit.
Side note: the front grill and hood of our rental car became a grasshopper graveyard. Peanut was horrified and disgusted. Nugget was fascinated.
Elkhorn Ranch is famous as the Dakota badlands home of Theodore Roosevelt. While TR had a few different homesteads in the area – including the Maltese Cross Cabin (to be featured in a future post – keep reading!) – Elkhorn Ranch was his primary, and most-loved, home in North Dakota.
For no good reason that I can think of, I was under the impression that this hike led to an actual preserved ranch homestead that we could check out – like the Maltese Cross Cabin – or at least some interesting Old West ruins. But the ranch buildings are no longer standing, and the most a visitor can see is the suggestion of a floorplan. Not sure if it’s not really publicized that the ranch is no longer there, or my poor reading comprehension – the latter, probably. But note to would-be visitors: this is a lovely hike and the views at the end are rewarding, but there’s no ranch house anymore.
About those views…
The hike culminates in a beautiful meadow surrounded by quintessential North Dakota badlands buttes. Just stunning – and the aroma, I can’t even tell you. Let’s just say if you ever get the chance to stand in a meadow surrounded by sage and breathe in, do it.
Worth every minute of that long drive.
Next week: we channel Laura Ingalls, hike the North Dakota prairie, and find some really cool petrified wood.
When planning our time in Medora, I wanted to find something for us to do that didn’t involve hiking – both as a change of pace and as a treat for Peanut, who was coming off a summer of musical theatre camp. Surfing around the travel internet, I found dozens of recommendations of The Medora Musical, a rollicking song and dance show that tells the story of the Dakota Badlands and Theodore Roosevelt’s life. It sounded fun and a little bonkers, so I booked us four seats. As we walked into the outdoor amphitheatre, I was stunned by the elaborate set, the Hollywood sign-style “MEDORA” in the hills behind the stage, and the amped crowd. Clearly, this was the place to be on a Saturday night in Medora.
We sat down, I provided popcorn in response to Nugget’s clamoring (he is a popcorn fiend) and we prepared for a wild experience. The dancers and singers delivered bigtime.
The western town scene moved around. There were horses ridden down from the hills and across the stage. There were explosions. There was a random basketball interlude.
The climactic scene featured a rider on horseback galloping down from behind the MEDORA sign, waving an American flag. I kid you not. It was absolutely wild.
I can’t recommend The Medora Musical highly enough. One of the TripAdvisor reviews I read noted that it was “not Broadway” but was of a quality equivalent to “the best regional productions.” That seemed about right to me; it was a higher-budget production than I was expecting – with the movable set, the horses, the many costume changes – and the kids loved it. (Steve and I enjoyed ourselves too.) I had just told them we were going to a “musical show” without more details – since I didn’t really know what it was all about, myself – and everyone was blown away.
What a fun night! I’m reliving it now, looking at these pictures, and grinning.Next week, we drive to a different unit of the park for a fun hike – check back then!
When on a hiking vacation, one must hike multiple trails per day, right? After hiking the Coal Vein Nature Trail, we drove directly to another trail on my list: the Wind Canyon Trail, a winding path high above the Little Missouri River valley.
It’s not an especially challenging trail – being mostly flat – so the bang for hiking buck is outstanding. With hardly any effort at all in payment, we were treated to gorgeous vistas for the length of the trail.
I was a little worried about whether this path would work for us, to be honest. I have a couple of hikers in the family who are afraid of heights, so I always like to know what the exposure situation is before deciding on a hike. Despite the great views and the trail situated high above the river, this one did not bother my acrophobic family members. The river-side slope was gradual enough that no one felt exposed or had vertigo. Winning!
We were really hoping to see some bison on this hike. There were hundreds of bison tracks in the mud down by the riverbank, so they were definitely around – but we didn’t see any of them (this time; stay tuned).
But this hike was still fabulous even without the bison. I mean – how can you go wrong with those views?
Still on a search for bison, we decided to drive over to another spot that we thought might prove more successful – a small ranch house that provided the trailhead for a five mile loop, and was less than a ten-minutes’ drive away. We’d met an older couple on the Wind Canyon trail, who told us they had seen bison there that very morning.
We didn’t want to do the whole loop – not realistic with the small hikers – but we decided to walk down to the riverbank and see what we could see.
Plenty of sage along the trail! I love the smell of sage – one of my favorite things ever.
Little Missouri! (Note: I am not keeping the name of this hike a secret, I swear. I forgot it, and despite extensive googling I can no longer find it. And that’s also why I am not devoting an entire post to this pretty walk. If you’re in TRNP, it’s in the South Unit and there is a white house and a small parking lot, and that’s all I can remember. Sorry!)
Here’s a pretty riverbank picture to make up for my poor memory.
Despite no bison, we enjoyed our riverbank sojourn. We watched two hikers who were hiking the full five-plus mile loop cross the river (they had a good-natured argument over whether to take their shoes off or not – one did and the other didn’t), and the boys practiced their fastballs and sliders.
I love to build a little unplanned time into a vacation and this is a great example of why – we didn’t intend to do this walk; it was a spur of the moment decision that worked because we didn’t have anything else to do, and it was a lovely interlude to wander around the riverbank and do some splashing.
Next week: we visit the park’s cutest residents! Check in with me then.
Our first stop on the Dakotas road trip agenda was Theodore Roosevelt National Park in Medora, North Dakota. Before the trip, I didn’t devote much thought to Theodore Roosevelt National Park – I expected it would be nice, and that I’d be glad to have visited, but beyond that I didn’t really consider. Just like with Joshua Tree, I ended up being surprised at how much I loved this park.
We stayed at a hotel in Medora, just outside of the park gates, and drove our rental car into the park each morning. TRNP is even more spread out than most national parks, so this was a perfect solution. On our first day in the park, we ignored the heavy cloud cover and chilly wind and made for our first stop: the Coal Vein Nature Trail. The coal vein is what it sounds like – a vein of coal running through this section of the park – and this vein is famous for having caught fire and burned continuously for twenty-six years. It’s not still burning, but I read that you can still smell it smouldering. (I couldn’t smell anything, though.)
The landscape was stunning! I would come to learn that there is a marked difference between North Dakota badlands and South Dakota badlands (which we would see later in the trip). The North Dakota version of the badlands was still green and verdant, with plenty of interesting plants to examine.
Like prickly pear cacti embedded right in the grass! Now there’s something you don’t see every day.
And there were plenty of varieties of juniper and sage – two of my favorite plants. I must have stopped ten times to sniff. And then ten more times to goggle at the gorgeous landscape spread out below us.
Strong start to the vacation! This first hike was one of my favorites of the entire week. But TRNP had plenty more riches in store for us.
Next week: the first day of our trip was a two-hike day as we explored another easy nature trail with stunning vistas.
After spending what felt like most of our 2022 travel days underwater, Steve and I were craving a good hiking vacation. We planned a family trip to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, and were looking forward to that with great anticipation when news dropped of catastrophic floods that closed huge sections of Yellowstone – including the area where our hotel was. Of course, our first concerns were for the people and animals who lived in the park area and were impacted. But once the dust settled and the waters started to recede, we realized that our planned vacation was not going to happen, and we started looking around for an alternative. On the strength of a recommendation by a random mom at Goldfish Swim School, we decided on a quick shift in strategy and booked a rather last-minute trip to the Dakotas. (The last-minute nature would have an unforeseen effect: it turned out the Sturgis Bike Rally, which was not something I knew about, was going on while we were there. My takeaway – from now on, when booking a trip, I will check to see if there are any big events in the vicinity that might end up drawing unusually large crowds.)
We flew into Rapid City, but immediately turned northwards and headed to our first stop – Medora, North Dakota, home of Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
Settling in for three days of stunning vistas… and thousands of prairie dogs living in “Prairie Dog Metropolis.” Goodness, they were adorable.
It was a busy week – six national parks, countless trails, multiple atmospheric adventures – and I have so much to show you. So for the next few months, we’ll be road-tripping around the Dakotas together. Next week – first tracks in Theodore Roosevelt National Park!
I was getting ready to start writing up my series of posts all about our summer vacation, and as I scrolled back through my photos I realized I never told you about what Steve and I did the night before vacation! Yes – I booked us a date night, possibly stupidly, but I didn’t even think about the early flight, just bought tickets for an evening the babysitter was available.
The Office Experience is just that – an experience – not really a show, but more of an interactive exhibit for Dunder Mifflin nerds. It travels around the country and was in Washington, D.C. over the summer. After seeing an ad on social media, I knew this was going to be a must-do for Steve and me.
When you first arrive, you line up and present your ticket and then receive an “Employee ID,” which gets you into the main exhibit. There were plenty of visual treats in store even while waiting in line and shuffling through the entrance and into the main exhibit – including big displays of the different departments at the office. As an employment lawyer, I naturally had to get a picture with Human Resources. Poor Toby!
Once you make it through the visitors’ briefing and the maze of displays, there is an exact replica of the set. This is the most exciting part of the experience, and definitely what I was most keen to see. I couldn’t believe I was standing in the Office bullpen!
We were encouraged to roam around and explore as much as we wanted – sitting at the characters’ desks, picking up their phones and opening their desk drawers. Naturally, I made a beeline for the desk occupied by my favorite character – prickly accountant Angela Martin. I loved all the details – the spreadsheet open on her computer (of course Angela was the only accountant actually doing any work), the cat trinkets, and the cat toy and jar of cat food in her drawer.
Save Bandit!
We explored the other characters’ workstations, too. Steve, of course, sat at Jim’s desk. Jim was writing an email to Pam!
Meredith was playing FreeCell. (Fun fact I learned from reading multiple books about The Office: in the early days, the cast had to be constantly in the background, pretending to be working, but the computers were not hooked up with internet. So they all played FreeCell all day.) And Steve also spent some time at his favorite character’s desk. Dwight’s stapler was in Jell-O again! Jim!
I also tried out the reception desk and answered the phone. (“Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam.”) Every detail was spot-on. I especially loved the Post-It note stuck to Pam’s desk. “Michael touched me again. -Ryan.”
Steve and I re-enacted a Jim and Pam moment. Are we discussing yogurt or plotting a new way to prank Dwight?
We sat in the conference room for a Talking Head (the name given to the characters “interviews”).
It was all decorated for a party, courtesy of the Party-Planning Committee!
And of course we stopped by Michael’s office and sat in his chair. (The dancing hamsters worked!)
I loved how every detail was in place and just perfect. For instance – check out the Dunder Mifflin motto on the reams of paper. “Quabity First” – I snorted.
From the supply cabinet to Andy’s doodles – Go Big Red! – there was something to see and giggle at everywhere. It’s been a few years since the last time I re-watched the show, but all of the little details in the set jogged memory after memory.
At one of my old firms, a group of Office fans started a Finer Things Club! Sadly, they started it after I had already left, so I couldn’t join. But I sent a picture of myself at the club’s lunch table to my former colleague, who told me – giddy with excitement – that the Finger Things Club had tickets to The Office Experience for the following week!
We sat at Toby’s desk and spied on his email to David Wallace, and we attempted to play Chair Ball – I was not very good at it.
Steve spilled Kevin’s chili! What a mess!
More fun details! Angela and Dwight, immortalized in art… A movie poster for “Threat Level: Midnight” starring Michael Scarn… Pam and Jim’s wedding outfits with the aisle dance scene playing on a loop… it was all just perfect, and so well thought-out, and we had an absolute blast.
Totally worth a night out, even with an early flight the next day!
Hey, hey, it’s time for one of my favorite posts of the year! 2022 was a banner year in so many respects. Freshly boosted with extra COVID-19 protection in January, we started venturing out more and our family travels (with and without kids) took us as far afield as Central America – twice – the Dakota badlands, and on plenty of local adventures. Looking back on the year that’s just ended, I can say we really lived this one.
In January, Nugget discovered his love for strapping boards on his feet and sliding down a mountain! We drove up to Pennsylvania most weekends of the winter, and I taught him the basics (this year, he’s destined for lessons with an actual pro – I don’t want to instill bad habits, and Mom needs time to sneak off and tear up some black diamonds). As for the rest of the month, we squeezed in a few hikes (around mountain days – skiing took priority!) and I discovered that serving as Peanut’s troop Cookie Manager was too much work and too much math for me. Nevertheless, she (me) persisted!
February was a month I’ll remember for a long time! Steve and I were supposed to be on the adventure of a lifetime in Antarctica, but our trip was postponed due to COVID (long story). Not ones to sit around feeling sorry for ourselves, we shifted plans at the last minute and went on an incredible road trip around Costa Rica – including the spectacular Osa Peninsula, where we finished our PADI scuba certification and dove Isla del Cano. After exploring the reefs, the cloud forests, and the Arenal volcano region, we fell head over heels in love with Costa Rica and are already scheming up ways to get back there. The rest of the month was the usual winter shenanigans – work, school, and Mom/Nugget ski days on the weekends.
Our sweet Nugget turned seven years old in March! Where does the time go? For once, we mostly stayed home – just one weekend on the slopes and no travel for any of us. It’s good to be home sometimes. Nugget started his second season of Little League toward the end of the month and we pounded the dirt on our favorite local hiking trails.
In April, I made my first of several business trips of 2022 – out to Seattle for a departmental all-hands meeting. It was a fun trip – seeing colleagues from all around the world, and Mt. Rainier even came out to say hello! Closer to home, there were more hikes and more Little League games, and Nugget and I squeezed in a couple of trail rides on our bikes. The Virginia bluebells burst into bloom and we hit up not one, but two, local bluebell festivals.
May was another quiet at-home month. I was under the weather for a few days, but we still managed to squeeze in a few hikes – including on Mother’s Day at Huntley Meadows (an old favorite from our days in Alexandria) where we watched the spring migratory birds setting up their nests and enjoyed the burgeoning green. And Nugget got a new mountain bike; he’d outgrown his old one and was looking pretty comical until we sized him up appropriately.
The kids wrapped up their school year in early June, and Steve was at his law school reunion the weekend they started their summer vacation – so I planned an action-packed celebration I called The Great Summer Kickoff Weekend of Partying and Fun. We officially started summer vacation with Chinese food eaten picnic-style in the backyard, followed by a movie night (Luca, a perfect summer movie!) with popcorn. The next day, I took the kids out for an epic day out – Duck Donuts for breakfast, a visit to the Old Town Pool (our old stomping grounds) and an afternoon hanging out with our favorite former neighbors, dinner out at a Mexican restaurant in Old Town, and gelato. Whew! (It was a lot, so Peanut promptly got a sore throat and it rained on Sunday, so the Great Summer Kickoff Weekend was mostly just a really busy Saturday, but you know how it goes.) The rest of the month, we bumped around the local hiking trails, celebrated Father’s Day at Steve’s favorite local park, and wrapped up the Little League season and started summer programming (baseball camp for Nugget, musical theatre camp for Peanut). I like to stay busy, you know!
July found me back underwater. My parents wanted to borrow the kids for a week or two, so we drove them up to New York and spent a week working remotely from my parents’ house and sailing and kayaking on the Sacandaga Lake over the Fourth of July weekend, then we left the kids to terrorize their grandparents and headed back to Central America – this time to Roatan Island, Honduras, for a “digital nomad week” of scuba diving in the mornings and working from our beach hut in the afternoons. Not a bad life, indeed! Back home, we hit the beach (Sandy Point State Park on the Chesapeake Bay) and Nugget got stung by a jellyfish – whoops – and the kids continued making the summer camp rounds; Peanut back at her musical theatre camp and Nugget transitioning to the soccer portion of his summer.
Family vacation time! We hit the road as a foursome in August. Originally, we had planned and booked a trip to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, but had to quickly change strategy again due to the historic flooding. (I mused to Steve that 2020 was the year of making plans and then cancelling everything and not going anywhere; 2021 was the year of making no plans at all and then traveling across the country twice; and 2022 was the year of making plans and doing something completely different – hopefully in 2023 we will make plans and actually stick to them.) On short notice, we changed our trip from Yellowstone to the Dakota Badlands – hitting up Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota; Badlands and Wind Cave National Parks, Mount Rushmore, the Crazy Horse Memorial and Custer State Park in South Dakota; and Devil’s Tower National Monument in Wyoming – what a whirlwind! We celebrated our seventeenth wedding anniversary on the trails at Badlands and then rushed home for the first day of school. And we capped off the month by celebrating lovely Peanut’s tenth birthday at the American Girl Store – seriously, how is she TEN?! And where did the summer go?
In September I dashed off to Nashville for another business trip, and found time to squeeze in a visit to the famous Parnassus Books while I was there. Don’t worry, I left with a major haul! Back at home, we continued tramping the local trails, and we also finally got out on the water as a family! Peanut got a kayak for her birthday – Nugget already had one – and we loaded all four onto a trailer and paddled as a foursome on a small local reservoir, one of our favorite lakes in the area, and the Potomac.
October was all about the local fun! We hosted my parents and their friends on their way back north after a month in Hilton Head (they’re doing retirement right, let me tell ya) and took them on one of our favorite hikes at Great Falls Park and for a stroll along Embassy Row in D.C. At the end of the month, Nugget and I ran in the Marine Corps Marathon weekend – he did the kids’ mile and I did the 10K and we discovered that he can bust out a seven minute mile without breaking a sweat. The kid is insane. And of course there was Halloween to cap it all off – the ultimate of the anklebiters’ holy days. Peanut dressed as Cleopatra (and did the entire trick-or-treating walk in character, acting as if she had just been plunked down in this century and had no idea where – or when – she was; it was hilarious) and Nugget was a cowboy. They were adorable, and the neighbors rewarded them appropriately with pounds and pounds of candy.
November found me traveling across the country again – another trip to Seattle, this time for a conference – and returning to find Thanksgiving creeping up on me. We hosted my parents, and Nugget and I both ran in the local turkey trot (he did the kids’ mile and I did the 5K). He finished in under eight minutes again but discovered that cold weather running is not for him – ha! The kid is definitely a Virginian.
In December we came full-circle and were back on the mountain again! Nugget and I got out skiing twice before the calendar officially turned – once at our regular mountain in Pennsylvania and once at Jiminy Peak in western Massachusetts. Those highlights aside, we did all the usual December things – I flew to Seattle for one more business trip; we brought home and decorated our Christmas tree; we visited Aladdin at Mount Vernon; we did our Old Town holiday wreath walk, and more. It was a whirlwind of a month, as December always is, and I ended the month looking forward to a clean slate in January and all the adventures that 2023 will bring.
Cheers to 2022, friends! What were the highlights of your year?
Friday – we made it! Happy holidays to all – Happy Hanukkah to those who are lighting candles this week, Merry Christmas to those looking ahead to Sunday’s celebrations, and Yule blessings and happy long weekend to everyone! I’m checking off the last few items on my work to-do list before the weekend, and I’ve taken off Tuesday so it’ll be an extra-long one; I can’t wait for some quiet time to rest and recharge in the light of my Christmas tree. This Christmas has, like they all seem to do, snuck up on me. I’m nowhere near ready – not a single gift wrapped yet, although I’m at least mostly done shopping (and hopefully completely done after this afternoon). This year, I pared down Advent activities to the absolute essentials – our family favorites, and nothing more. There are some years when I really want to lean into the run-up to Christmas, but this year it felt good to take a step back, focus on things like fresh air and connection, and just let myself recharge as much as possible. But we do have some activities that are must-dos, like getting our Christmas tree and decorating it in a small family party. Other than that, I held the outside the house activities to those that bring us (or at least me) real joy.
Starting with a visit to Aladdin the camel at Mount Vernon. This is an absolute necessity. George Washington used to obtain a camel as a Christmas treat to entertain his stepchildren and grandchildren at Christmas, and the estate still brings Aladdin over (from a local reserve) every year. We’ve been visiting him since he was just a baby camel and only missed the years when we lived in western New York. Christmas just isn’t Christmas without Aladdin.
Of course, I also love walking around the gardens at Mount Vernon any time of the year. But last year, after reading Nigel Slater’s Christmas Chronicles, I was struck anew by the pared-down beauty of the gardens in winter.
The kitchen garden – my favorite.
We don’t go inside the house every year, but we did this year. Every time we take the mansion tour, I find something new to appreciate. This time, it was the beautiful wallpaper designs. Not the style I would choose for my own house, but beautiful to examine (and photograph).
As always, a lovely afternoon of wandering around Mount Vernon! No matter how many times I visit, it never gets old.
The following weekend, Steve and I revived an old favorite holiday tradition: we saw Handel’s Messiah performed by the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center. We used to go every year, but hadn’t been since Peanut was born. This year, we sprung for a babysitter and made a date night of it – we really went all out. Steve even scored reservations at the Terrace Restaurant in the Kennedy Center and we had a delicious dinner before the show. (Worth noting: this was before the performance got going, as you can tell by the people milling about in the aisles. Naturally I didn’t photograph during the show!)
All decked out in our holiday finery! I even dug my vintage partridge in a pear tree pin out of the jewelry box for the occasion.
We weren’t the only ones decked out, either. The Kennedy Center was festooned in rainbows! What a night – it was such a special treat to see Messiah again. It’s one of my favorite pieces. And I was surprised by how many of the arias and recitatives I remembered. The choral numbers are generally the most memorable, but the whole performance was familiar and it felt like such a revival of a joyful tradition.
Finally – the other essential! Every year starting in about 2010, I think, Steve and I had a tradition of walking around Old Town Alexandria and looking at the holiday decorations. Old Town is a very historic area – pre-Revolution, actually – and the residents stay true to the look and feel of the neighborhood by choosing very traditional holiday decor. Lots of greenery and fruit. The wreaths are especially beautiful.
We started our walk this year at the Basilica of St. Mary. This is the very first Roman Catholic parish in Virginia and the historic church building is just gorgeous. And every Christmas they put out a beautiful Nativity scene. (Steve asked where the baby was. I said: it’s not Christmas yet. He hasn’t been born, silly.)
After visiting the Nativity, we started our walk around Old Town. As usual – lots of beautiful wreaths, lots of greenery, and fruit accents. I considered drying out some orange slices or maybe doing orange and clove balls at home, then decided against it. Any added work sounds like too much this year. Walking around and looking at other people’s efforts was the sweet spot.
This one was my favorite this year. So exuberant!
I just can’t get enough of this holiday beauty!
The other part of our Old Town decorations walk tradition is a festive beverage, of course! Before kids, Steve and I used to stop for a glass of wine. Then it became dinner at our favorite pizza joint. With COVID, the tradition has changed again; now it’s takeaway cocoa from Misha’s Coffee. But that’s the thing about favorite traditions – they can evolve over time. Maybe in a few years we’ll come full circle and be back to toasting the holiday with Pinot Noir.
Merry everything, friends! I hope you have exactly the holiday weekend you’re dreaming of – whether that’s an all-out festive extravaganza, a quiet weekend of watching snow come down, or something in between.
covered in flour 