Religion and National Liberty

The Transfiguration

Moses & 10 Commandments

Self Portrait/Scoffer at the Crucifixion

I was in Philadelphia recently and stumbled into some Marc Chagall paintings at the National Liberty Museum. It was quite a surprise to see them so of course I had to snap away with the magic of a cell phone camera as -- natch -- I'd forgotten my regular old digital camera again.  There's interesting and text-heavy images and photographs in this private museum focusing on various heroes who have upheld and fought for liberty, freedom or otherwise resisted tyranny. The exhibit on the top floor of the museum is called "Voyage to Liberty through Faith Gallery" and seems to focus on the role of religion and liberty and includes text about basic religious precepts of several world religions except for Christianity which is only indirectly included. The Ten Commandments, the Transfiguration and a painting of the Crucifixion are no longer everyday images for many. Chagall's painting style is very recognizable here and I found them just delightful, don't you too? 

Blue Sky and Daily Bread

Gutted Wonder Bread building

Wild clematis icing the rose of sharon

When I saw the sky through the open roof of the old Wonder Bread building at 641 S Street NW, I just knew I had to snap it as after the building is developed there will be no chance to do that again! It's a big building -- about 98,000 square feet -- that will become stores and offices. I actually looked up the history recently, to find out that the Wonder Bread Factory opened in the early 1900s as Dorsh's White Cross Bakery. Then it was bought by Continental Baking Company in 1936 and used  as a factory for Wonder Bread and Hostess products (Twinkies perhaps!) until they relocated to a larger plant in Philadelphia, closing the DC factory in 1988. When I first moved to BloomingdaleDC I do recall smelling the baking aroma as far away as North Capitol street sometimes and hearing that they gave away "stale" or "overrun" baked goods to anyone who got there at the right time.  Then again, the sky has looked wonderful lately almost every day so I found myself snapping my usual flowers and plants and things, all with the sky in them.   How wonderful is our daily bread of blue sky!

Fine Dining in The Dining Car

The Dining Car diner just outside Philadelphia, PA is where we stop for martinis and pies when we drive home.  Well, to be more accurate we stop so I can have a BLT with ONE martini and hubster has a salad and settles for a Pepsi as they don't sell Coke. We stop off here on our way home to avoid the heavy rush hour traffic for about 45 minutes before driving on.  Then afterwards, we usually buy some really terrific butter cookies or a super blueberry pie to take to our Bible study group. It's a nice place to eat and it's always filled up with local customers, mostly old greying couples. And the waitresses are very perky and helpful and the food is priced right. So it's fine dining.

Side Trip to Philly, Dinner in the Dining Car

View from the diner window

Lamp over each booth

On our way back from visiting our son in Pennsylvania, we occasionally stop at a diner, The Dining Car, for a quiet meal and to avoid the local traffic that clogs up Route 95 during the dinner hour. One of the reasons we like to eat here is that the food is edible and cheap, it seems clean, and the service is quick and they serve just about anything you might want in a diner. It's also barely a stone's throw from the main road so we don't feel like we are getting too far off our way and of course, it has lots of parking and you can tell from the car number plates that it's a local favorite. I can get a nice martini with my Cobb salad or french fries and it seems like the portions are not too large and not too small. My husband can get his onion soup too and he will settle for a Pepsi there, although he'll give the waitress a hard time about it being a non-Coke establishment. The customers don't look like customers in DC restaurants:  there's lots of groups of older people eating together, families with teen kids, twosomes of 60 year old guys, or trios of women in their 70s eating together so the ambiance doesn't feel like the capital city.  It makes me realize how the DC Demographic is quite different comparatively.  What's nice is the decor has some very nice deco elements too, such as in the lamps and the overall appearance of the building. We've also gotten our favorite BLTs and bought cookies in the bakery shop on our way out. So you can see, this is a very useful place for us to go on our travels.100 miles away from the capital city and you are in another part of God's country.  As it turns out, this diner is featured in Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives: An All-American Road Trip, a book listed on Amazon.com!  Who knew! I never read it but I hope the author gave them a good grade!

Train To DC

Today I took the Amtrak Acela fast express train to/from DC and Philadelphia and enjoyed having Internet access even though the WiFi was a bit slow. The seats were very comfortable and roomy and the trip up, at least, was all that it should be for the extra price -- over a regional train seat cost -- that I paid. The trip back was delayed by about half an hour because of "police activity on the line" was what they first told me. Ever inquisitive, I asked for more and it turned out someone had been killed while trespassing on the track,  north of Philadelphia, God rest this poor soul!  There were a lot of TSA and train police guys visible for the wait, as I guess they investigate things right away.  The tragedy was enough to delay all the late afternoon and evening trains so my "express" train back to DC ended up about 45 minutes late and for a good portion of the journey moved quite slowly. Because of the death, it seemed I noticed how open and exposed the rail tracks are to any passerby. While there are fences, it doesn't take much to climb onto train lines. But I was blessed by a number of spectacular scenic views, including one stretch in Delaware where there is water on either side of the train and the train tracks seem barely above the water level. Ducks, fishing boats, ripples and reeds and lily pads were all to be seen, making for unexpected sights while returning home. I checked the news later and found out the incident occurred in Woodbridge, NJ but not a lot of details were supplied.