#Nats

We have been talking about getting "cheap seats" to a Nats game since we moved out here a year and a half ago.  It finally happened toward the end of April when we joined in on an outing organized for hubby's co-workers for a weekday game against the Philadelphia Phillies.

View as we entered the stadium

Spring baseball weather is unpredictable at best . . . but despite torrential rains earlier in the day and an inauspicious 40 min rain delay at the start of the game, they uncovered the field at the appointed hour, the rain mostly let up, and somehow they managed to get in all nine innings.

We had great seats on the right field side, in the lower rows pretty close to the field.  But we (and many others) didn't even sit in our seats because they weren't under cover and the people that were sitting down there looked like they were getting pretty wet.  Had it been warmer, we might have endured the rain, but it was in the 40s . . . too cold to be soaking wet!  Instead, we hung out at the top of the section, under cover, with easy access to the mecca of concessions and beverages inside the stadium.

Staying dry in our "adopted" seats

Nationals Park holds about 40,000 people, but you can see from the photos that the stadium was only about half full, likely due to the cold and rainy weather.

View from our under cover perch

One of the entertaining things they do during the game is the "Presidents Race."  The Presidential participants are the four founding fathers that appear on Mt. Rushmore (Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt), plus Presidents Taft and Hoover.  The Presidents have costumes appropriate for their era, and they have gigantic foam heads.

For those of you who haven't seen it before, it's pretty hilarious!  Here's a video:

The Presidents greeting fans after the race

We also enjoyed getting to know the players by hearing the songs they chose for when they come to bat.  O loved that many of them were classic rock songs from some of his favorite bands!

The game was really a battle of the pitchers until the 9th inning.  With a base-clearing home run fresh under his belt from a recent game, Bryce Harper came up to bat with bases loaded again and hopes were high!  Unfortunately, he got a big "K" (strikeout).  Bummer.

Philly got their bats going and got a few lucky breaks in the 9th inning to score 3 runs, and it was game over.  The Nats got blanked, losing 3-0 to the Phillies.  This was actually the last of a three-game series with the Phillies, and the Nats lost all three games.  But not long before that they were on top of the National League East, so maybe they'll get back in the groove on their upcoming 10-day road trip.

You can't see them, but we had on our Nats t-shirts under all the layers of jackets.  Win or lose, we were excited to have an opportunity to take in a game and root for the home team.  Go Nats!!!

Awkward family selfie with the stadium sign

Fort Frederick

As luck would have it, Fort Frederick, a classic 18th century star fort outside of Hagerstown, Maryland, happened to be hosting a three-day Annual Market Fair a few weeks back!

How timely, because we hadn't visited the fort yet, plus our favorite reenactors needed to pick up a few items for their "kit" before the big Revolutionary War weekend down at Mt. Vernon at the end of April.

The weather was absolutely miserable on the day we chose to go up there, so the two reenactors braved the trip on their own, determined to browse the wares of each of the 150+ sutlers until they found exactly what they needed.

Sutler tents as far as the eye can see!

Patriot recruit at the quartermaster trying on a French-supplied Lottery Coat

The boys found almost everything they needed at the sutler shops . . . among the acquisitions were sock garters, whisk and picks, spatter dashers, shoe buckles and similarly obscure 18th century replica items you can't find at your local JoAnn craft store.  With half their mission accomplished, they eagerly headed into the fort itself to check it out!

Fort Frederick has a varied and interesting history spanning over two and a half centuries.  It was originally built by the Maryland colony in the 1750s to protect the area settlers from Indian raids and as a base for supplies during the French and Indian War (the same era as Ft. Ticonderoga and Ft. William Henry, which we visited on our Upstate New York trip last October).  During the Revolutionary War, Ft. Frederick was used as a prison for British soldiers.  During the Civil War, it was used for gun placements intended to guard a nearby canal.  After that, it fell into disuse and disrepair.  The State of Maryland acquired it in the 1920s and began developing the area into a state park.  The two soldiers' barracks inside the fort were reconstructed in the 1970s.

View of one of the bastions

The star forts we've seen during our time on the East Coast have all come in a variety of shapes and sizes.  No two have been alike.  Fort Frederick is a quadrangle with bastions on each of the four corners.  

View from one of the restored garrisons

You can get a better feel for its shape and massive size from the second level of one of the restored garrisons. 

Glimpse of the sutler village just outside the fort walls

Visitors can go inside the barracks and get a glimpse of what a soldier's life would have been like during the French and Indian War.  The soldiers slept as many as three to a bunk!

The boys also enjoyed watching some hardy, rain-soaked French and Indian War-era British soldiers drilling on the parade ground.

Like any of the restored star forts, Fort Frederick is definitely a treasure.  We hope to visit it again at the start of our great trip west, since our likely route will pass directly by it.  Fingers crossed that we can catch it in some nicer weather on our next visit!

Life, Liberty and Happiness

It has been about a year since our family made our first trip to Jefferson's Monticello in Central Virginia.  Because we wrote a fairly lengthy blog post about it then (see "Jefferson's Monticello"), we won't repeat those details here.  Instead, we'll supplement it with more photos and additional tidbits from our deeper dive into the "Jefferson Experience."

Lucky for us, the weather that day was spectacular and warm, which made it all the more enjoyable.

Enjoying Spring weather on the garden walk (the "nickel view")

The views from the top of the mountain were endless!

And the massive gardens were just getting started.

We had a great tour of the house and a very knowledgeable tour guide.  Sadly, there's no photography in the house, so we only got this shot out front before entering for the tour.

But let's be honest, it was worth the 2 1/2 hour drive to Charlottesville, just to see the flowers!!!  It was a veritable RIOT of color, everywhere we looked!

Jefferson was very innovative in his design of Monticello in that he put the "dependencies" (such as the kitchen, wine cellar, beer cellar, laundry, etc.) all below the house, and the slave quarters and other tradesmen outbuildings were nearby along Mulberry Row, just below the house.

Jefferson's slaves turned out elaborate French-inspired cuisine from the kitchen

Restored slave quarters

We could have spent all day looking at the exhibits at the visitor's center, because they really give you a feel for Jefferson and the kind of man he was.  Here are just a few of our faves:

The "boisterous sea of liberty" interactive exhibit

Detailed models and information in the architecture exhibit

A replica--the original is at the National Archives

A 18th century "Stander" used by Jefferson--ahead of his time!

This deeper dive into Jefferson's world was fascinating on so many levels but also admittedly left us with some conflicted feelings and unanswered questions.

— If Jefferson was so opposed to slavery, why didn't he free his slaves at his death when he had an opportunity to do so, like other founding fathers did?

— And for someone who was so concerned about providing for his family and ensuring the future sustainability of Monticello, why did he live so beyond his means that he died with substantial debt (somewhere between $1 and 2 million), ironically forcing his family to sell Monticello in order to pay his debts and basically leaving them without a home?

Standing in our 21st century shoes looking back, it's easy to judge, but (unlike proponents of the modern "renaming" movement) our view is that history needs to be viewed in the context and time in which it took place; it can't be viewed through a modern-day lens.  We try not to get "political" in this blog, so we're content to leave those questions unanswered  and instead focus on the significant contributions this incredible individual made to the foundations of our modern democracy.

Want to know how to "Live the Jefferson Experience" today???   (According to a t-shirt we saw in the gift shop, lol!)

-  Declare your Independence

-  Read Books

-  Pursue Life

-  Pursue Liberty

-  Pursue Happiness

-  Follow Truth

-  Boldly Question

-  Rebel a Little

-  Dream of the Future

-  Celebrate History

Yup, not bad advice and pretty much sums up the Jeffersonian values that are embodied and shared with visitors to Monticello.  

The ritual photo with the man himself

One last interesting tidbit we missed last time was the marker pictured below.  It sits just off the garden path in the back and is one of over a dozen disks that were placed throughout the United States between 2003 and 2006 to honor the 200th anniversary of the surveying and mapping contributions of Lewis & Clark.  

Our stumbling across this marker was meant to be!  It made us realize that we need to spend some of the time on the drive back to Oregon following in the ACTUAL footsteps of the explorers that provided the inspiration for our own journey.  Watch for more Corps of Discovery marker photos in blog entries we'll post later this summer.

200th Anniversary National Geodetic Service plaque commemorating
the symbolic starting point of the Lewis & Clark Expedition

Until next time . . . caaaaaaaarrrrpppppeeeee diiiiiiieeeemmm!

Awkward family selfie (sorry O!)