Episode 227: Washington D.C. Field Trip Audio Postcard

by | May 18, 2023 | Episode, Field Trips, Podcasts

In late April we set off on our first Field Trip of 2023 with a whirlwind tour of Washington, D.C. with 40 of our newest friends. It’s hard to get away for the eight or nine days of our other Field Trips, so what can we see and do in half that time?

The answer: a lot.

All the Field Trippers at Mount Vernon on our last day.

We outlined the trip in the episode from the first night to the last final dinner together and gave our fellow travelers a chance to share their impressions, highlights, photos, and lessons that they learned from the trip.

We began with cocktails and a trolly tour of the nation’s capital at night. All the monuments and buildings were lit and sparkling–it was a magical way to see the city as a whole.

Vietnam Women’s Memorial Photo: SFV

On our first full day, we toured the museum and estate of Marjorie Merriweather Post, Hillwood, from the mansion to the gardens and a special visit to the archives. That afternoon we visited the former home and office of another previous subject, Clara Barton’s Missing Soldiers Office, and followed that with afternoon tea at the historic Willard Hotel.

“As a big gardening/plant enthusiast I loved seeing the stunning greenhouse at Hillwood Estate! I had never seen so many varieties of orchids and tropical plants.” Hillwood. Photo Delaney Schmidt

Diana Z looking as beautiful as the flowers at Hillwood Estate photo: Ellen Lynch
The view from the office window of Clara Barton’s Missing Soldiers Office. Photo: S. Vetter
Our afternoon tea at the Willard Hotel (this tray is for two people!) photo: SFV

Day three brought us to two Smithsonian Museums: The National Museum of African American History and the National Museum of American History and ended with dinner, dancing, and meeting visiting listeners on a Potomac cruise.

I go to prepare a place for you by Bisa Butler. Read about it HERE (Susan LOVED this piece of art.)

Ann Lowe was one of the first African Americans to become a noted fashion designer. She designed Jacqueline Bouvier’s wedding dress when she married John F. Kennedy (not this dress.) Photo: Ellen Lynch

“I snapped this in the NMAH suffragette exhibit! It just made me grin!” Photo: Theresa Hocking
Julia Child’s kitchen at the American History Museum photo: SFV
147 steps UP on a broken metro escalator. photo: SFV

Our amazing tour director, Laura Hart of Like Minds Travel making sure everyone got on the boat for the dinner cruise. Photo: Lori Bloom
This group met in London and almost half of them were not on this tour but came to see D.C. on their own (freestyle traveling) and came to the dinner cruise. Photo: Lori Bloom

Finally, on day four, we had a “Women That Changed America” walking tour, a trip through the National Portrait Gallery, and on to a private tour and dinner at Mount Vernon, the site we were just talking about on both the Martha Washington and Ona Judge episodes! That is a high point of all these trips: Standing where so many of our former subjects had been during their remarkable lives.

While facing The Capitol, the suffragette walking tour group view a copy of The Suffragist newspaper 106 years after the March 31, 1917 issue was first published in Washington, DC by the Congressional Union For Woman Suffrage. Photo: Sarah Alexander
“This is artist Elizabeth Catlett (1915-2012) in the exhibit I Dream A World: Selections from Brian Lanker’s Portraits of Remarkable Black Women at the National Portrait Gallery. I am deeply grateful for how much the field trip centered the lives of Black women, which I did not expect.” Photo: Michele Steinberg
Marian Wright Edelman by Ruven Afanador in the National Portrait Gallery (check out her locket! Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman!) photo SFV
Martha Washington’s widowhood bedroom on the third floor of Mount Vernon photo:SFV

Sheep on the farm at George Washington’s Mount Vernon Photo: Sandy Schmidt
The Enslaved People’s Memorial at Mount Vernon was a somber place that none of us wanted to miss. Photo:SFV
The original memorial is now surrounded by a larger space to sit and reflect

“The Dove of Peace, may it bring liberty and freedom to all…” Mount Vernon photo by Cathleen Wardly
Oh hey, that’s us at Mount Vernon! Photo: Cathleen Yardley

If you would like to join us on Field Trip, there are still (as of May 17, 2023) a few spots for London in September of this year. That trip is almost sold out (Paris is so sold out that the waitlist could fill two more tours) but there are still tickets for the dinner cruise in both London and Paris so head over to Like Minds Travel and take a gander at that itinerary and join us for dinner!