Fossils from the National Museum of Natural History

Now that I’ve been living in DC for nine months, long enough to gestate a baby, should one be so inclined, here are 10 things I love about living here.

1. Watching the fireworks from Friday night Nats games from our rooftop deck. Too bad the Nats are in the basement. I know it’s a recession and all, but is .500 baseball really too much to ask? Excellent fireworks, though.
2. Hearing Reveille, Taps and other bugle calls from the Marine Barracks seven blocks away from the rooftop deck. This is the oldest active Marine post in the U.S., whose location Thomas Jefferson helped select.
3. Eastern Market, especially the truck farmers on weekends, Southern Maryland Seafood, Canales Delicatessen, with its rotisserie chicken and jalapeno sauce, the homemade pasta place, and the Market Lunch counter, despite its onerous seating policies.
4. Walking to the Capitol and the Mall. The Capitol is 18 blocks away, and the Mall is deceptively long, so if it’s more than 90 degrees, we the Metro. But it’s pretty awesome to walk and avoid the Metro and car traffic. Plus, there are often interesting protesters.
5. The Shenandoah National Park, less than two hours away. We went there a couple of weeks ago to celebrate our anniversary and stayed at the Skyline Lodge. While the temperatures in DC were in the high 90s, they were in the 70s at the Park. The views are spectacular and the hikes are challenging. Have a moonshine cocktail or a cigar as you watch the sunset in the valley.
6. Biking on the Rock Creek Parkway. The DC portion of the Parkway is closed to cars on weekends, but the Maryland part is also accommodating to bicycles. Unlike biking in the city, you can get pedal as fast as your legs will take you. Serious cyclists are all over the route, traveling in packs with their garish jerseys.
7. Architecture, specifically the old brick townhouses in Capitol Hill, and their lovely gardens.
8. Diversity of its people: The population of the District of Columbia is quite diverse: 54% black, 40% white, 9% Latino, 3% Asian, 2% multiracial.
9. The license plates: Taxation Without Representation: Yeah! What do we have to do here to get a voting member of Congress?
10. The national museums. The the National Museum of Natural History has the best fossils and dinosaur bones in the world. If you have spent any time hunting for fossils like Petoskey stones, you will be amazed at the clarity and size of its collection. Of course, they have the best dinosaur fossils in the world, too, but I was hugely impressed by the invertebrate Cretaceous fossils. The National Air and Space Museum is great, too, with an iMax theater and space flight simulation. You might want to avoid it on weekends, though, if wandering hordes of children frighten you.

There are many other cool things about DC that I haven’t experienced yet, like the Eastern Shore, the Kennedy Center, the Spy Museum, and Ben’s Chili Bowl. You DC friends, tell me what I’m missing. What do you love about DC?

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