Thursday, Feb. 17 and Friday, Feb. 18, 2022 - Wendy has a retreat this weekend, starting Thursday afternoon. So after lunch on Thursday, I HIT THE ROAD:
I wanted to see the
National Gallery of Art and the
Smithsonian American Art Museum WITH MY NEW CAMERA (iPhone 11), and see EVERYTHING!!! I have previously blogged about these museums:
4/28/2014 (Nat'l Gallery),
4/29/2014 (Smithsonian),
7/22/2016 (both), and
5/29/2017 (both) - I will try not to repeat myself.
I left home about 1:30 - nice, quick and easy through Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York (it was a little surprising to see that the
Tappan Zee Bridge has been renamed/replaced with the
Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge, but since it is the only "Bridge" in the area, I figured it must be the one):
I hit stopped-traffic-for-an-hour (because of an accident) on the
Garden State Parkway, but ate my sandwich and listened to Bruce - it did stretch my arrival southwest of Baltimore from 9:15 to 10:15:
A Good Start to this adventure (456 miles) - Thank you God!
Music for today:
various artists -
AM Gold: The Mid 60's Classics, 1960s
A good collection of 22 Top-40 songs, some good, some EXCELLENT ["Rember (Walking in The Sand)" by The Shangri-Las]
Then some more Singles: AC/DC -
You Shook Me All Night Long (from "Back in Black"), 1980
Mark-Almond -
The City, 1971
This is the 2:54 version - I should replace it with the 10:27 version from their first album.
The Black Eyed Peas -
Boom Boom Pow (from "The E.N.D."), 2009
Very Cool song! I just watched it on YouTube: 423,103,047 views since Jun 16, 2009
The Killers -
Human (from "Day & Age"), 2008
Then back to Albums: various artists -
Zumba Fitness Dance Party, 2012
Carrie Underwood -
Blown Away, 2012
Delirious? -
Discover: Delirious?, 2011
Wow - with "I Could Sing of Your Love Forever" and "Majesty", this is very good Worship music.
Alice In Chains -
Jar Of Flies, 1994
Acoustic album - it is the first EP in music history to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, with the first week sales exceeding 141,000 copies in the United States.
various artists -
Cardio 3-Disco, 2000
various artists -
Desperado: The Best of Country Rock, 2002
I really like the 4 songs I kept on this cd:
Rick Nelson - "Garden Party"
The Souther-Hillman-Furay Band - "Fallin' In Love"
Poco - "Crazy Love"
Michael Murphey - "Wildfire"
Lucius -
Good Grief, 2016
Phantom Planet -
The Guest, 2002 second album
Their "hit" was "California" (a very good song) which is on one of The O.C. mix albums.
And when I hit New Jersey: Bruce Springsteen -
Soul Crusaders (2 cds), 1977
From A Live FM Broadcast Recorded At Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto, Canada, 13th February 1977. First ever show with an intermission.
Wynton Marsalis -
Live At The House Of Tribes, recorded 2002, released 2005
Whitney Houston -
My Love Is Your Love, 1998
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Friday, Feb. 18, 2022 - Friday I slept until 6 AM. Shower-Shave-and-Shine, then went a mile down the road to
Kay's Diner - I was the only one in the place:
Had a western omelette, rye toast, and a cup of coffee. PERFECT!
At 8 AM I drove down to DC:
and got to my parking (9:30, SpotHero, $11) at 9:20, which was fine.
I had my "walking map":
I had some extra time, and wound up walking 7 miles today:
I've been trying to figure out what kind of blog this is going to be. I have hit you guys 3 times already with "Beauties of the National Gallery of Art" blogs, so I don't really want to do a 4th.
And I took 472 photos today.
Upon reviewing my pictures, 2 themes emerged:
- compare-and-contrast art that had previously been at
The Corcoran Gallery of Art (which Wendy and I visited in 2014, right before it closed permanently), and is now in the collection of, and on display in,
The National Gallery of Art
- compare photos from my old iPhone versus photos that I took on MY NEW IPHONE 11
At
The Corcoran, the display was "Salon style", which I hate because you cannot see the paintings in the top row:
Winslow Homer - "A Light on the Sea", 1897 oil:
and then the picture I took at
The National Gallery of Art:
Other examples from
The Corcoran include:
Frederic Edwin Church - "Niagara", 1857 oil:
Edward Hopper - "Ground Swell", 1939 oil:
I am very happy that many of The Corcoran's pieces are hanging in The National Gallery, where they have enough space to breath.
I got a new iPhone last August, primarily because apps-I-needed were no longer working on my iPhone 5s. I called Apple, and got the oldest-model that they could sell me new, which was an iPhone 11. I knew that pictures I have been taking since then were good, but it wasn't until I compared photos-of-paintings that I was BLOWN AWAY! If you have a camera/cell phone older than 3 years, and you take pictures, do yourself a BIG FAVOR and get a new phone - you will be happy!
Which gives me a chance to compare old-and-new photos:
Edgar Degas - "Before the Ballet", 1890/92 oil:
Thomas Eakins - "The Biglin Brothers Racing", c. 1873 oil:
Thomas Moran - "Green River Cliffs, Wyoming", 1881 oil:
Frederic Edwin Church - "El Rio de Luz (The River of Light)", 1877 oil:
Alfred Thompson Bricher - "A Quiet Day near Manchester", 1873 oil:
J.M.W. Turner - "Approach to Venice", 1844 oil:
It was then time for lunch:
before I made my way over to the Modern Building:
Jackson Pollock - "Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist)", 1950 oil:
Before I leave
The National Gallery of Art, there are some more beauties I want to remember and share:
Claude Monet - "The Japanese Footbridge", 1899 oil:
Winslow Homer - "Sparrow Hall", c. 1881-82 oil:
Pablo Picasso - "Nude Woman", 1910 oil:
Salvador Dali - "The Sacrament of the Last Supper", 1955 oil:
As you may have noticed above, I kept
MapMyWalk on all day - it gives a fun map of me at
The National Gallery of Art:
It was also nice to see that they "spruced up" the
Rotunda area, from 2014 to now:
So I made my way north a few blocks, to the
Smithsonian American Art Museum:
Compare-and-contrast:
Andrew Wyeth - "Dodges Ridge", 1947 tempera:
Thomas Moran - "Rainbow over the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone", 1900 oil:
And some beauties not shown before:
Samuel Colman - "Storm King on the Hudson", 1866 oil:
Sanford Robinson Gifford - "Whiteface Mountain from Lake Placid", 1866 oil:
The architecture is as BEAUTIFUL as always:
And I had fun with
MapMyWalk:
They sure don't make it easy to see everything!
I walked back to the garage, picked up my car at 2:30, and headed back to the Super 8 (a lot of Friday afternoon traffic). 67 miles driving today - Dinner at
Five Guys. Thank you God for this Wonderful Adventure Day!
Music for today:
Alice Cooper -
Alice Cooper's Greatest Hits, 1974
Neil Young -
Hitchhiker, recorded 1976, released 2017
John Cougar Mellencamp -
Scarecrow, 1985
Shameless Plug: if you enjoy this blog, you may like my other one about Hiking the 4,000 footers in New Hampshire/Vermont/Maine/New York:
hyperlink:
dixonheadingnorth
http://dixonheadingnorth.blogspot.com/
