The National Portrait Gallery’s signature installation, America’s Presidents, is the only public collection to feature portraits of all of the U.S. presidents.
Tagged: art, National Portrait Gallery, Obama, photography, portrait, Presidents, Washington D.C.
Hillwood Mansion and Museum celebrates the arrival of Spring with Russian Easter traditions. Crafts, games and music provide entertainment in and around the estate which was once home to Marjorie Merriweather Post. She was a collector of art, maintaining the most comprehensive collection of Russian imperial art outside of Russia. Her mansion is equally a museum as it was her home.
We spent eight days enjoying the charm of Bar Harbor and the natural beauty of Acadia National Park. What I love most about vacations is the opportunity to experience things new and different. Seeing my children push themselves beyond what they’ve experienced and recognizing that this is something new and cool is the most rewarding. Lucas will remember putting aside his fears as he hiked up and down inclines too steep to be comfortable. Penny and Oliver will remember climbing up the most impossible dirt hills and rocky cliffs and the pride of pumping their arms into the air when they reached the top. And I will remember it all. 
The view of Bar Harbor from an observation point in Acadia National Park. This was the first time we had sight of the sand bar at low tide. Imagine our confusion when we saw people walking in the middle of the sea.
Acadia National Park protects the natural beauty of the highest rocky headlands along the Atlantic coastline of the United States, an abundance of habitats, high biodiversity, clean air and water, and a rich cultural heritage. Each year, more than 3.3 million people explore seven peaks above 1,000 feet, 120 miles of hiking trails, 45 miles of carriage roads, 17 stone bridges, and four lighthouses. – http://www.nps.gov
Beal’s Lobster Pier in Southwest Harbor has been a working fish and lobster pier since 1932. In 1969, after almost four decades of success as a wholesale operation, the third generation of Beals opened a Maine seafood restaurant at the end of the pier. The restaurant’s vision remains the same today as it was then–serve up the freshest seafood to customers, at the doorstep of the working waterfront. – www.bealslobster.com
“If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal- that is your success. All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself… Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.”
― Henry David Thoreau
For a few hours at low tide a sand and gravel bar are exposed allowing people to walk across the bottom of the sea from Bar Harbor to Bar Island. It was incredible to see the bar exposed for the first time, what had moments ago been the sea suddenly revealed what lay beneath.
Sand Beach is nestled between a mountain and a rocky shore on the east side of Mount Desert Island in Acadia National Park. When we arrived the inlet was shrouded in early morning fog which was quickly chased away by the day’s sun.
We did our first staycation in Washington D.C. when Lucas was two and Penny just a babe. Over the years we’ve continued this indulgent tradition, being tourists in our own city.
Our Everyday 