William Paca House, Annapolis, Maryland

Quoting from Historic Annapolis website about the William Paca House:

This five-part Georgian mansion was built in the 1760s by William Paca, one of Maryland’s four Signers of the Declaration of Independence and the state’s third Governor. Carefully restored by Historic Annapolis beginning in 1965, today it is recognized as one of the finest 18th-century homes in the country and a National Historic Landmark. Guided tours of the house, which features period furnishings and paintings, reveal the inner workings of an upper-class household in colonial and revolutionary Annapolis.

We recently enjoyed a tour of the house and the garden. 

Spa Creek, Annapolis, Maryland Drawbridge

I am not aware of any drawbridges in either Arizona or Utah. When we came to the Spa Creek Bridge, we found the drawbridge open and boats traveling up and down the Creek. I jumped out of the car and walked up to take a few photos. My wife drove the car into a convenient parking lot and we continued on with our short trip when the bridge went back down.

Spa Creek, Annapolis, Maryland

I have a serious conceptual challenge calling this a creek. However, it really is Spa Creek in downtown Annapolis, Maryland. This image is looking north up the creek. Actually, the "creek" is an estuary of the giant Chesapeake Bay. The real creek is a swampy little trickle of water in a gully that regularly floods with heavy rains.

King Kamehameha I at the US Capitol Building

If you have been to the US Capitol or visited Honolulu or watched Hawaii 5-0 then you have seen this statue. From a painting of Kamehameha I, this statue doesn't look like him at all. Here is a summary of his life:

Kamehameha I (Hawaiian pronunciation: [kəmehəˈmɛhə]; c. 1736? – May 8 or 14, 1819[1] ), also known as Kamehameha the Great (full Hawaiian name: Kalani Paiʻea Wohi o Kaleikini Kealiʻikui Kamehameha o ʻIolani i Kaiwikapu kauʻi Ka Liholiho Kūnuiākea), was the founder and first ruler of the Kingdom of Hawaii. A statue of him was given to the National Statuary Hall Collection in Washington, D.C. by the state of Hawaii as one of two statues it is entitled to give.

Colonial Era Hedgehog Cake

We have seen two of these cakes in Annapolis, Maryland. There are recipes for this cake going back into the 18th Century. They do not sound very tasty. Here is a link to one recipe from Colonial Williamsburg. http://recipes.history.org/2013/12/to-make-a-hedgehog/

We saw this dish at the William Paca House in Annapolis, Maryland.

Elephant at the Smithsonian

This is probably one of the most recognizable and photographed exhibits at any of the museums in Washington, D.C. During the summer months, it would be difficult to get a photo of this magnificent elephant without showing the crowds of people. But this was a visit last winter when the museums were relatively sparsely visited. I have always wondered how you preserve animals by killing them and stuffing them for museums.

Saguaro Alcove

Until you have lived in the Mid-Atlantic part of the United States for a while with all the trees, you can't really appreciate the difference of the Arizona Sonora Desert. There are a few very beautiful places that we have visited, but most of what you see here is a solid mass of trees and vines. The real scenery of the Eastern part of the United States is in the mountains and along the seacoast. But I certainly feel more at home in the deserts of the Southwest.

Always Return to the Desert

When I moved to Utah, I was asked if I would be changing the blog to WalkingUtah. I said no because I will always be WalkingArizona. Even though I am now in Maryland, I am still WalkingArizona. This is a photo taken at the Boyce Thompson Arboretum, one of our favorite places in Arizona.

Desert Vista

Deep in my heart, I will always have a part of the desert. I can look out the window right now and see a parking lot with lots of trees. I have seen more rain in Maryland than I have experienced since I lived in Panama. But all the rain in the world cannot erase my love of the desert.

The Botanic Capitol

While wandering around Washington, D.C., we find a lot of different perspectives. We also find places that are not as frequently visited by tourists. Everyone seems to go to the Air and Space Museum, but there are usually no crowds at the National Botanic Gardens or many other wonderful places.

Bromeliad

According to a Wikipedia article entitled "Bromeliaceae" the bromeliads are a  family of monocot flowering plants of 51 genera and around 3475 known species native mainly to the tropical Americas, with a few species found in the American subtropics and one in tropical west Africa, Pitcairnia feliciana. This bromeliad was found in the National Botanic Gardens Conservatory.

Back to the Desert

It's not that I am tired of being in the East, but I do need to get back to my WalkingArizona every once and while.

Inka Khipu (Inca Quipu)

There is no letter "k" in Spanish. The common spelling of these artifacts is Inca Quipu. Here is one explanation of the spelling change from Wikipedia.

Quipu is the Spanish spelling and the most common spelling in English. Khipu (pronounced [ˈkʰipu], plural: khipukuna) is the word for "knot" in Cusco Quechua. In most Quechua varieties, the term is kipu.

The use of the letter "k" is a phonetic convention. The Quechua have no uniformly accepted method of transcription. There are a number of English/Quechua Quechua/English dictionaries online and from what I could see, most of them use a standard Spanish transcription method. Here is a link to the Quechua alphabet. There is actually a Highest Academy of the Quechua Language or Academia Mayor de la Lengua Quechua (AMLQ), Quechua: Qheswa simi hamut'ana kuraq suntur. It is a private institution in Cusco, founded in 1990, concerned with the "purity" of Quechua.

The Khipu or Quipu is described in a Wikipedia article entitled, "Quipu." Here is a short description from the article.

A quipu usually consisted of colored, spun, and plied or waxed thread or strings made from cotton or camelid fiber. The Inca people used them for collecting data and keeping records, monitoring tax obligations, properly collecting census records, calendrical information, and for military organization. The cords stored numeric and other values encoded as knots, often in a base ten positional system. A quipu could have only a few or up to 2,000 cords. The configuration of the quipus has been "compared to string mops." Archaeological evidence has also shown the use of finely carved wood as a supplemental, and perhaps more sturdy, base to which the color-coded cords would be attached. A relatively small number have survived.

This photo was taken in the National Museum of the American Indian. 

Mayan Calendar

When I was attending the University of Utah and majoring in Spanish, I got into a discussion with one of the Spanish professors who categorically maintained that the Pre-Columbian Indigenous population of the Americas never developed a system of writing. To this day, most of the historical and anthropological accounts of the ancient civilizations in North, Central, and South America refuse to acknowledge the existence of written documents. I had been reading the old account of the "Spanish Conquest" in the original documents and knew that the Catholic Priests had systematically burned all of the books they found as "heresy." Although this is well known, there are still statements that no writing existed in the Americas. 

Here is a quote from one Wikipedia article espousing the "accepted" position of most American anthropologists and historians in the United States.

The Popol Vuh is a creation narrative written by the K'iche' people before the Spanish conquest of Guatemala, originally preserved through oral tradition until approximately 1550 when it was written down. See Wikipedia: Popol Vuh.

Here is another article, Wikipedia: Maya codices, that presents an entirely different picture of the early writings.

There were many books in existence at the time of the Spanish conquest of Yucatán in the 16th century; most were destroyed by the Catholic priests. Many in Yucatán were ordered destroyed by Bishop Diego de Landa in July 1562. In his conviction of the superiority and absolute truth of Christianity, De Landa wrote: 

We found a large number of books in these characters and, as they contained nothing in which were not to be seen as superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they regretted to an amazing degree, and which caused them much affliction.

Here is another account from the Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas:

Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas lamented that when found, such books were destroyed: "These books were seen by our clergy, and even I saw part of those that were burned by the monks, apparently because they thought [they] might harm the Indians in matters concerning religion, since at that time they were at the beginning of their conversion." The last codices destroyed were those of Nojpetén, Guatemala in 1697, the last city conquered in the Americas. With their destruction, access to the history of the Maya and opportunity for insight into some key areas of Maya life was greatly diminished.

My major for graduate work was in Linguistics, at that time part of the Anthropology Department. My views and the views of the professors at that time differed considerably and I made the fortuitous decision not to pursue a career as a linguist. It is only recently when doing some reading about the current status of linguistics, that I realized how fortunate that decision was.

Endless Hallway, Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is not at all like you might expect it to be. Of course, it is the largest library in the world, but it is also a huge building with lots of hallways and side rooms with locked doors. It is very accessible, but also somewhat mysterious. There are crowds of people in the main entry area and in some of the exhibits, but the rest of the building is quiet and quite empty. You would expect more books, but almost all you see are in the Main Reading Room. I will be writing a lot more about the Library in the near future.

Orchids in White

The Orchidaceae family is one of the two largest families of flowering plants with more than 28,000 species and 763 genera. As I have mentioned before, there are also a huge number of hybrids and variations. We saw these lovely flowers in the National Botanic Garden Conservatory. Considering the temperature and the high humidity in the glass-enclosed structure, it is obvious why our prior efforts to keep orchids alive in our home did not succeed.

A Fly Trap without flies

These interesting plants were in an enclosed glass case at the United States Botanic Garden Conservatory in Washington, D.C. They are Venus Fly Traps or Dionaea muscipula from exotic locations in North and South Carolina. I am continually surprised at the collections of items in Washington, D.C. from the ridiculous to the sublime. But what is more interesting is the fact that in all the huge museums and collections, how little is dedicated to anything on the west side of the Allegany Mountains. Here is an explanation of Venus Fly Traps from Wikipedia:

The Venus flytrap (also referred to as Venus's flytrap or Venus' flytrap), Dionaea muscipula, is a carnivorous plant native to subtropical wetlands on the East Coast of the United States in North Carolina and South Carolina. It catches its prey—chiefly insects and arachnids—with a trapping structure formed by the terminal portion of each of the plant's leaves, which is triggered by tiny hairs on their inner surfaces. When an insect or spider crawling along the leaves contacts a hair, the trap prepares to close, snapping shut only if another contact occurs within approximately twenty seconds of the first strike. Triggers may occur if one-tenth of the insect is within contact. The requirement of redundant triggering in this mechanism serves as a safeguard against wasting energy by trapping objects with no nutritional value, and the plant will only begin digestion after five more stimuli to ensure it has caught a live bug worthy of consumption.

United States Botanic Garden

The United States Botanic Garden has become one of our top favorite place in Washington, D.C. There are three parts: the National Garden, the Conservatory (glass building), and Bartholdi Park. Each of these is a wonderful place for people like us who love flowers and plants. We even found the perfect app for plant and animal lovers: iNaturalist. We learned about it on a tour in the Conservatory.

Cardinal Flower

I have seldom seen a flower so red. I don't think that photos can do it justice. This is a Cardinal Flower or Lobilia cardinalis.  Here is a short quote from Wikipedia about the plant.

Lobelia cardinalis (syn. L. fulgens, cardinal flower) is a species of flowering plant in the bellflower family Campanulaceae native to the Americas, from southeastern Canada south through the eastern and southwestern United States, Mexico and Central America to northern Colombia.

Hmm. Not much to say, but it seems to be a common plant. I wonder why I have not noticed it before, 

Bartholdi Fountain and US Capitol

There are a number of surprising locations in and around the U.S. Capitol building. One of these places is the Bartholdi Park, the location of this large Bartholdi Fountain. Here is an explanation of the fountain from the United States Botanic Garden website.

Frederic Auguste Bartholdi (1834-1904) is best known for creating the Statue of Liberty. Bartholdi created this cast-iron "Fountain of Light and Water" for the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The fountain, cast in Paris by A. Durenne, weighs 30,440 pounds, stands 30 feet high, and has caryatid figures 11 feet in height. Bartholdi saw its combination of iron, gas light and water as symbolically appropriate for a modern city. 

The fountain was purchased by the U.S. Congress for $6,000 at the suggestion of Frederick Law Olmsted, the famous landscape architect who designed the Capitol Grounds. It was moved to Washington, D.C., in 1877 and placed at the base of Capitol Hill on what used to be Botanic Garden grounds. 

The gas lamps, lighted by battery in 1881, made the fountain a popular attraction at night. The lights surrounding the basin were added in 1886, and the round glass globes replaced the original gas fixtures when the fountain was completely electrified in 1915. 

During the relocation of the Botanic Garden in 1927, the fountain was dismantled and erected in its present location in 1932. Over the years, the fountain was regularly repaired and maintained. 

From 2008 to 2011, it was taken off site for a full restoration and updated with energy-efficient systems and water treatment technology. This work ensures that Bartholdi Fountain will continue to provide enjoyment for many years to come.

Up Close with an Orchid

There are over 28,000 accepted species and 763 genera in the Orchidaceae family of flowering plants. There are also a huge number of varieties of some of the species. Here is a note about the family from Wikipedia.

The family encompasses about 6–11% of all seed plants.[4] The largest genera are Bulbophyllum (2,000 species), Epidendrum (1,500 species), Dendrobium (1,400 species) and Pleurothallis (1,000 species). It also includes Vanilla–the genus of the vanilla plant, the type genus Orchis, and many commonly cultivated plants such as Phalaenopsis and Cattleya. Moreover, since the introduction of tropical species into cultivation in the 19th century, horticulturists have produced more than 100,000 hybrids and cultivars.

Thunderstorm over the Capitol

This isn't a figurative thunderstorm, it is a real one. We had to keep walking to avoid getting wet. This was a rare day in the late summer when there were no crowds. Actually, as soon as this photo was taken a tour group of about a hundred people showed up, every one of them with a camera.

Cattleya "Eleanor Roosevelt"

This orchid is the "Eleanor Roosevelt" variety and is in the Cattleya genus in the Orchidaceae family. For many years in the United States, this was the variety of orchid most commonly purchased for a high school prom or other special occasion. Here is a brief explanation of this beautiful flower from Wikipedia: Cattleya.

Epiphytic or terrestrial orchids with cylindrical rhizome from which the fleshy noodle-like roots grow. Pseudobulbs can be conical, spindle-shaped or cylindrical; with upright growth; one or two leaves growing from the top of them. The leaves can be oblong, lanceolate or elliptical, somewhat fleshy, with smooth margin. The inflorescence is a terminal raceme with few or several flowers. Flowers have sepals and petals free from each other; the lip or labellum (lowermost petal), usually has a different coloration and shape from the rest of the flower and covers in part the flower column forming a tube. There are four polliniums (bag-like organs that contain pollen). The fruit is a capsule with many small seeds.

We have tried a few times to grow orchids without much success. Of course, we have always lived in a very dry area such as the Salt River Valley in Arizona or on the side of a mountain in Utah and these places are not very conducive to the high humidity needed for orchids.

Devil's Cotton

This is Devil's Cotton or Abroma agustum. The flowers are deep red, but this one is obviously past its prime. It looks a little bit like a cotton flower except for the weird interior. There doesn't seem to be much about this plant online. The plant has a high-quality fiber and has some medicinal uses. I thought it was a very strange flower. See also, Abroma augustum.

The Capitol Under Glass

The U.S. Capitol Visitors Center is almost entirely underground, except for this view of the Capitol Dome through a skylight. It is always interesting to look at things from a new perspective. I find images all over Washington, D.C.

Water Lily Pool

I am always impressed by the amazing color of water lilies. This photo turned out to be one of my favorite designs of all time. It was a surprise to find this beautiful pool in downtown Washington, D.C. It was in the National Garden which is a little-visited garden next to the U.S. Botanic Garden Conservatory on the Mall.

A Scruffy Baby Robin

You don't usually see a young robin just sitting on a park bench. These birds are usually actively looking for food on grassy areas. This particular robin looks well fed but scruffy. Robins are really the largest North American Thrush. Maybe this bird was in poor condition from living in Washington, D.C?

A Sunflower

Some of the most common flowers, even those considered to be weeds, have the most beautiful flowers. There is a lesson here. I have always loved sunflowers. When my wife and I first got married, we purchased a print of a painting by Vincent Van Gogh of some sunflowers. That painting was always hanging in our house over the years. Strangely, a few years ago, I found an old photo of me when I was a baby and on the wall of the room where the photo was taken was another print of the same Van Gogh painting. Maybe, there is a reason why I love sunflowers.

A Watchful Squirrel

We didn't have squirrels for the many years we lived in Mesa, Arizona. But, of course, we did have a lot of other creatures like scorpions and snakes. In Provo, we had a squirrel that lived on the hill outside my window, but we hadn't seen him for a while. Now in Annapolis, Maryland, we have a lot of squirrels. However, this one lives in Washington, D.C.

Grass Rope Bridge from Peru

I still remember reading the book by Thorton Wilder published in 1927 about the collapse of an Inka rope bridge. the book is called "The Bridge of San Luis Rey." This is what that type of bridge looks like from an exhibit in the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian. I don't know if I would venture across such a bridge. His idea of the bridge was faulty, however, the ropes of these bridges are replaced every few years by the locals. He assumed they hadn't been maintained since the time of the Inka kings.

From the middle of the street

We always end up doing a lot of walking in Washington, D.C. The streets around the Mall are either very narrow or very wide. I took an opportunity, while in the middle of the street, to take a photo of the Capitol. It was a very sunny, but not too hot, day.

Noah's Ark from Peru

Noah's Ark by Virgilio Oré (Quechua), Ayacucho Region, Peru

This exquisitely carved Noah's Ark was one of the most impressive objects we recently saw at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. The exhibit includes items from North America, Central America, and South America. Here is another photo of the back side of the Noah's Ark.