Hello Everyone, well August is upon us and I’ve personally passed the 4 month mark of being sheltered- in-place here in Washington. It’s been a quiet week for the most part which is a very good thing sometimes. I’ve been enjoying baseball games on the radio, long morning walks in Rock Creek Park and working on my book. Hurricane Isaias passed by us yesterday dousing us with some much needed rain and the heat and humidity seem to have backed off for a minute. Despite the fact that the pandemic is still in full effect, I feel pretty calm and balanced this week, and for that I am grateful. Perhaps it’s the break in the heat and the beginning of August – both of which signal that summer is winding down. There are many things I love about summer, but the heat is not one of them. Whatever it is, I’m happy to be feeling more like myself this week.
I was thrilled to see the passage of the Great American Outdoors Act this week by a bipartisan effort with the support of the president. This bill will give much needed funding to our National Parks in this country to try and relieve some of the backlog of maintenance needs which has piled up for decades. I love the American National Park System and have been on a lifelong quest to visit all four hundred and some units. This year I made a turn into the final hundred. These truly are our greatest treasures and they are even more special because as public lands they belong to all of us. Never listen to anyone if they tell you these are “government owned land”. They are not – they are yours and mine to enjoy and need to be maintained and preserved for future generations as well. Kudos to congress and the president for coming together to do something great. Beyond that, though, I’ve been trying to avoid the news as best I can.
This past Friday, as a follow-up to last week’s Christmas in July celebration, we had a Mid-Year New Year Party complete with some wonderful hors d’oeuvres and (a tad too much) champagne. Since the first half of 2020 hasn’t turned out very well, we were looking ahead at the second half with high hopes of a vaccine and a quick return to a more normal life.
Saturday I spent behind the computer writing about some of Washington DC’s oldest homes – a project which was supposed to be a single post but got too complicated so I decided to look at each property individually. It’s a project I will continue working on for the next couple of weeks.
