Thanksgiving in the USA (9)
On the penultimate day of my trip (Saturday), I went into Washington DC on my own.
I started with lunch with a very close and longstanding friend, Larry Cohen, at a Mexican restaurant called “Oyamel” and an ice cream parlour called “Pitango”. I have known Larry for almost 30 years but not seen him since my last trip to DC four years ago. He stepped down as President of the Communications Workers of America last year after serving from 2005-2015 but in retirement has been working flat out on a variety of political campaigns. He was a key member of Bernie Sanders’ effort to secure the Democratic nomination for the presidential race and he now chairs the governing board of Our Revolution which is the successor organisation to the Sanders campaign. Larry and I were together for almost three hours and had an intense political discussion.
Afterwards I stayed downtown and took in another Smithsonian museum: the National Museum of Natural History. In my many visits to Washington, I have never previously visited this particular museum and I was impressive at how extensive and informative it is. The museum houses the 45.52 carat Hope Diamond which is said to be possibly the most viewed artefact in any museum in the world. Other galleries that I viewed included the National Gem Collection, the Last American Dinosaurs and the Mammals Hall. I watched short films on the nature of evolution and the origins of humans. All fascinating stuff.
Back at Brinklow once more, Mike and Laura put on the third film of my stay and the best one: a 2010 work called “Conviction” starring Hilary Swank.