Market, Art, and Gardens

We decided to give ourselves a bit of a break this morning and did not try to leave the Coach House before 9:00 AM.  A little extra rest was good.  Our first destination of the day was the Eastern Market.  We walked up 3^rd St SE to North Carolina Avenue through Seward Square to the market, located at North Carolina Avenue and 7^th St SE.  When we arrived at the market, trucks of all sorts were backed up to the burned out building unloading their produce, and craft vendors were busy setting up their booths in the street.  We, however, were on a mission to find The Market Lunch.  We had heard great things about their legendary breakfasts and we were ready to partake.  We located the place in the temporary building and got in line.  There was a lot to see as we waited in line to place our order.  The lunch counter was located right across from the seafood case and right next to the flower stall.  (Maybe the smells cancelled each other out?)  Looking down the hall, we could see meat cases, cheese cases, a bakery stall and more produce vendors.  It was a very busy and colorful place.  For breakfast, I had a Crab Cake Scramble with Grits, Barbara had the Turkey Sausage Benedict with Grits and Kris had the Spinach Omelet with Potatoes.  We found a place at the counter to enjoy our meal and watch the show behind the grill.  Everything was excellent!  By the time we were finished eating, the line was out the door.

After our meal, we took some time to walk through the building and see all the different vendors inside.  Just outside, we found that many artists had also set up booths in the parking lot (or maybe it was a playground?) next door. There was a street musician playing his saxophone and an artist painting in the street.  The whole thing was like a combination of the Beaverton Farmer’s Market and Portland’s Saturday Market put together.  Very laid back.  The weather was still sunny and nice, so it was fun just to wander down the street and see what the market had to offer.  About 11:30, we decided it was time to catch the Metro up to Dupont Circle to see The Phillips Collection.

We boarded the Metro at the Eastern Market station where we caught a blue line train to Metro Center.  There, we had to switch to a red line train to go on up to Dupont Circle, same change as we made last night---it’s getting to be familiar now.  We exited the Metro at Dupont Circle and walked a few short blocks up Massachusetts Ave NW to Q Street where we located The Phillips Collection.  There was another street musician when we came out of the Metro, a guitarist this time, and we photographed an artist at work painting a picture on his front steps as we walked up Q Street.  It was 12:15 PM when we arrived at the Phillips---45 minutes ahead of our planned arrival time.  Barbara and Kris were taking no chances on my having a museum meltdown today!  We started at the top floor of the building with the special exhibition, Degas to Diebenkorn---lots of wonderful modern pieces.  As we worked our way down through the bottom two floors, highlights of the collection for us were Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party and Dual Form, a sculpture by Barbara Hepworth, one of only two castings, the other of which is located at the Portland Art Museum.  We spent a leisurely 2 ½ hours in the museum, perused the gift shop and even had time for a glass of wine at the museum café before heading over to Georgetown.  Now, that’s how I like to do a museum!

After we left The Phillips Collection, we walked a few blocks up to the vicinity of Q Street and 22^nd to catch a bus that would take us to the Tudor Place Historic House and Garden.  Upon boarding the bus, I spotted a folded pocket knife on one of the seats, so I picked it up and tried to hand it to the driver.  He would not touch it and really scolded me for picking it up, “You don’t know where that’s been!”  He literally would not touch it with his hands.  Finally, he let me put it in his folded shirt sleeve and he disposed of it in an on-board container.  We took our seats and I posed the question, “Alright, who’s got the Purell?”  Fortunately, Barbara had some.  The least I could do was sanitize my hands.  Who knew?  I’m not sure we’re really liking the bus at this point.

Another Lesson Learned :  Do not pick up anything you find on the bus in DC.  Just go tell the driver.

 We were a little anxious about finding our stop and the driver finally caught on, “You guys are rookies, aren’t you!”  We fessed up, “Yes, but we’re trying to figure this out.”  He was very helpful after that and let us off at exactly Q Street and 31^st, which was just where we needed to be.  There was a sign pointing up the street to Tudor Place and everything.

After all that, we walked up the street and entered the garden only to discover that it was closing in 5 minutes (it was almost 4:00 PM---time had gotten away from us again!).  Fortunately, the attendant on duty was able to recommend Dumbarton Oaks, just up the street.  They had nice gardens and they would be staying open later.  However, there would be an $8 admission charge.  We had not researched Dumbarton, and Kris questioned if it was really an important historic garden.  The woman informed us that the Malta Treaty had been signed there.  Well, OK.  We hurriedly took a few pictures of the Tudor Place Garden before it closed and headed up the hill a few more blocks to Dumbarton Oaks.  It really was quite a beautiful garden, with many things in bloom---lots of tulips and wisteria.  Very elaborate.  We spent about 30 minutes wandering the grounds before heading down the hill to the center of Georgetown about 4:45.