Susan Solo – Photographer | Traveler | Adventurer

Tag: Tourist at Home

Tourist at Home: The Sunflower Fields at McKee-Beshers
I originally thought about calling this post something along the lines of, “Sweating My Face Off in a Sunflower Field.” It is indeed a hot and sweaty excursion since the flowers are only in bloom for a couple of weeks during the warmest part of the year, but it’s definitely worth it if you’re in the area and need a nature fix and/or a cheerful pick-me-up. The golden fields of McKee-Beshers Wildlife Management Area are located in Maryland about an hour drive from D.C., tucked into a quiet stretch of farmland countryside.

There are a few maps online to make your sunflower search easier, and I found the one on the McKee-Beshers website (shown below) to be accurate and helpful. The area shows up on Google Maps or you can follow the directions posted on the website. Once you’re close to the location you just drive along River Road until you see the signs for McKee-Beshers (there are a few), and then you can either park along the road or in the small lots if you arrive early/late enough. If you go on the weekend during peak bloom, expect crowds and slim pickings for parking.

I ended up going to the fields twice this year. The first visit, Chris and I went in the evening around 5pm to the field directly off of River Road (red arrow on the right below), and the second time I went in the morning to a field further into the park (red arrow on the left below).

I had read something online that said sunflowers will rotate throughout the day to face the sun, so I figured it wouldn’t matter what time we arrived as long as the light was nice. Only when we got to the first field, we found the flowers all facing away from the sun! The light was still a little harsh and it was incredibly hot, so we just took a few backlit images, several close-ups, and photos of the backs of the flowers and called it a day.

I love these next two gorgeous images, captured by Chris.

I went back to the park by myself another time to see if I could also get some photos of the flowers facing the sun. I parked in the small lot along Hunting Quarter Road and followed the trail. After about one half-mile I reached a huge field where the flowers were a little smaller in diameter than they were in the first field, but some were taller than I am!

As of July 30th, I think the fields are just a little past peak, but there are still a few that look like they’ll open up soon. I love photographing the flowers in their various stages. I also got to see a goldfinch land on a stem for a few seconds before flitting off to another spot.

The whole park is beautiful and you’ll find other flora in the area as well…

…but mainly you should go for the sunflowers!

Know Before You Go:
- PRICE: There is no entrance fee and parking is free.
- TIMING: From a photography perspective and for fewer crowds, I recommend visiting during the hours around sunrise and sunset. I personally would also like to go back on a cloudy day to do some close-ups with the soft, diffused light. There are multiple fields and they are spread out over 30 acres, so if you want to spend time in more than one field, plan to be there for a couple of hours.
- CLOTHING: If you can stand it, wear long pants! There are paths in among the sunflower stalks where you can walk, but you’ll still end up brushing against the stems and tall grasses, so be aware of the potential for ticks, etc. (I wore jeans so that I could also avoid scratches, but it’s a trade-off since it’s so hot.) I also recommend hiking shoes or boots if you want to go deeper into the fields.
- SAFETY: Wear a good bug spray. Bring water so you can stay hydrated in the summer sun.
- PHOTOGRAPHY: We didn’t see any rules or guidance regarding photography equipment and we did see photographers there with tripods, reflectors, etc., so I think it’s safe to assume these pieces of gear are currently allowed. And I don’t know if the flowers ever rotate to face the sun or not, but all of the ones we encountered were facing to the east. I loved using my favorite telephoto lens to get close to the best blooms without having to get too far off the pathways.
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August 1, 2017
Tourist at Home: Renwick Gallery

It truly boggles my mind, how many quality museums and galleries we have access to living in the D.C. Metro area, and I’m constantly adding to my list of must-sees as exhibits come and go. Chris and I both had yet to ever visit the Renwick Gallery, so over the long July 4th weekend we decided to go see the WONDER exhibit before its final days.

Part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Renwick Gallery houses contemporary crafts and decorative art, and admission is free to the public. And if the free entry isn’t enough of a bonus, photography is encouraged!

The Renwick Gallery completed a huge two-year renovation last year and reopened with the highly Instagrammable exhibition, WONDER, full of large-scale whimsical pieces.

I’ll leave any real critiquing to the true art connoisseurs, but I personally loved this exhibit. As the title suggests, the pieces play with the imagination and inspire wonder. I especially loved Gabriel Dawe’s vivid piece, Plexus A1, constructed of sixty miles of rainbow-colored threads.

A few of the installations will remain as part of a long-term collection including the hanging Volume piece (shown below), but three of the other works will close next weekend on July 10th.

Aside from the WONDER exhibit, there are plenty of interesting and beautiful works of art in the permanent collections.

The gallery is located just a few blocks from the Farragut West metro station so it’s an easy addition to any D.C. day itinerary. We popped in shortly after opening (10am daily), and since it’s a smaller building we spent a little under an hour meandering through the various displays. I highly recommend a visit, and bring your camera!

July 4, 2016
Tourist at Home: Antiques Hunting

Chris and I spent the day in D.C. last Saturday trying out a new-to-us self-guided walking tour app called GPSmyCity. We downloaded the Washington D.C. version on my iPhone and selected the Antiques Hunting Tour 2 since I’m always on the lookout for vintage cameras. We ended up discovering some fun shops that we might not have otherwise visited!

Our tour started off in the Logan Circle area and the first stop brought us to Miss Pixie’s, full of the most interesting knick-knacks, furnishings, and used books.

My favorite find was this bin full of old film prints! I looked through it for a good ten minutes or so before I had to pull myself away. Some of the photos were marked on the back with names and dates while others weren’t marked at all, leaving me to wonder who these people were. I wanted to buy the whole lot (prints should have a home!), but at $1 per print it would have added up to quite a bit. And I don’t even have my own prints super organized, so maybe I should start with that project instead.

Next on the tour we stopped into GoodWood on U Street. I could have wandered around in here for quite a while, perusing the beautiful furniture and unique objects. And oh how I wish we had room in our tiny house for more furniture! I’m not sure what I would do with a shelving unit full of outstretched arms, but the display intrigued me and made for a good photo.

Legendary Beast sits on top of a comic book store also on U Street and it was the third stop on our tour. We only popped in for a moment since we were running short on time, but I’d love to go back and pour over the decades worth of fun baubles. It’s a small store, but it’s packed to the brim with vintage jewelry.

In addition to discovering antique shops, thanks to our self-guided walking tour we stumbled upon CakeLove and self-guided our hungry selves right into the shop. Holy sugar fix in a portable container, Batman. Is cake-in-a-jar the new cupcake?! Or has this been a thing for a while and I’m just now hearing about it? Either way, it’s an amazing treat and it hit the spot after wandering around the city. I highly recommend the Salty Caramel.

Our afternoon also included plans for visiting two of the local breweries so we had to cut the tour short and miss the last couple of stops, but we can easily pick up where we left off next time. And there are several other walks in D.C. that I’d love to do in the future, not to mention tons of other cities I’d love to tour with GPSmyCity. We found the app to be simple and intuitive, and effective for navigating around the city. I think one of the stores may have closed since the Antiques Shopping 2 walk was created (or else we were too hopped up on cake to find it), but we loved the ease of finding everything else. I’ll definitely be downloading apps for each of the cities we’re visiting next year!

Thank you to GPSmyCity for providing me with a complimentary code to try the app. The thoughts and opinions in this blog are my own.

December 17, 2015
Tourist at Home: National Building Museum

I have to confess, I didn’t even know the National Building Museum existed until earlier this month when I saw a Washingtonian article about an upcoming bizarre-but-fun art installation called The Beach running through September 7th. Chris and I love to explore pockets of D.C. that we haven’t seen before and I’m all about the bizarre-but-fun genre, so we decided to make a field trip out of it.

The museum is located four blocks from the Mall on F Street. We took the Metro and got off at the Gallery Place-Chinatown exit; Judiciary Square is a little closer, but it was closed at the time. Despite issues on the Metro that caused us to arrive at the museum much later than we anticipated, we still had enough time (1.5 hours) for a good visit before they closed at 5pm. Admission to the Great Hall and the gift shop is free, but all of the exhibitions require a ticket.

When we arrived, the line for The Beach exhibit snaked back and forth around a long queue and stretched far alongside the enclosure, so I gave up on the idea of paying for an exhibition ticket and getting into the ball pit because we only had an hour until closing time. (The lesson here: if you want people to flock to your museum, simply install a giant pit of plastic balls.) We walked around the second floor of the Great Hall for free instead and perused miniature models of interesting buildings throughout the world. Plus the stunning design of the Great Hall itself is something to admire.

After almost an entire lap around the floor, I admit I felt a little disappointed in the amount of stuff to see in the Great Hall, but then a museum employee standing outside of the House & Home exhibition let us know that the exhibition was free after 4pm so we popped into a side room full of beautiful photos and displays related to the history of American homes.

We loved looking at the homey vintage objects. Chris saw the cassette tapes and the Apple computer and mused out loud, “Stuff we had when we were younger is so old now that it’s in a museum.” So that’s great.

We may have misunderstood the exhibitions-are-free-after-4pm thing, because we let ourselves into the Scaling Washington exhibition next. The website clarifies that only House & Home is free after 4pm on weekdays; reduced admission is available for the museum’s other exhibitions. Oops! (We ended up paying for a ticket anyway though – more on that shortly.) Scaling Washington features the impressive photography of Colin Winterbottom, documenting the post-earthquake restoration of the Washington Monument and Washington National Cathedral.

We finished our free tour of the National Building Museum with a visit to the gift shop in which we found books, photos, stationery, apparel, puzzles, games, toys, and kitchen gadgets for the home cook who has everything.

By the time we finished perusing the Great Hall, two exhibitions and the gift shop, the line for The Beach had significantly dwindled down to only a few people, so we decided to see if we could jump into the ball pit for the last 10 minutes before closing time. Lo and behold, the museum’s hours were extended and we had plenty of time to see The Beach! We purchased tickets, which included admission to all of the exhibitions, so we retroactively paid for our accidental foray into Scaling Washington.

I actually felt conflicted about playing in the ball pit. My first reaction: germs. The ball pit will inevitably be covered in germs. But there’s also the side of me (the kid side) that reminded myself I can’t go through life worried about every little germ, so in I jumped.

And alongside all of my fellow ~~narcissists~~ art enthusiasts, I took selfies. And pictures with Chris. And we took pictures of each other. What can I say? It was a weird, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take a photo of our heads surrounded by white plastic orbs in the name of art.

There were moments, though, where it was difficult to appreciate the art – a boy chucked a ball at my head more than once. And as I sank deeper into the seemingly bottomless pit of plastic, (spoiler: it’s about three feet deep) I feared being stepped on, or losing the contents of my camera bag. I did sacrifice a $5 Metro ticket to the ball pit gods. I’d love to see what is uncovered at the bottom once the exhibit is deconstructed and the balls are removed for recycling.

But there was no denying it – despite the crowds and the germs and the fact that I skinned my knee getting out of the pit, The Beach was silly shark-free sunburn-free fun! And art. The Beach is art.

Verdict: we enjoyed the National Building Museum! I’m interested to visit again when new exhibitions are installed.

July 13, 2015
Tourist at Home: Air and Space Smackdown

My in-laws were in town this past weekend when we had the most gorgeous last-days-of-summer weather, so Chris and I decided we would all head out to the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) together. None of us had been to the museum in several years and it’s a favorite, so it seemed like a good time to visit. (I mentioned to Chris that the last time I went I was a senior in high school to which he pointed out, “That was more than half your life ago!” Ack.) I was also curious to compare the museum to the Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center closer to home, hence what I’m calling the Air and Space Smackdown.

In this corner, the classic National Air and Space Museum…

…vs. the newcomer, the Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center.

Two contenders go into the ring, and there can be only one winner. No, just kidding. Both museums belong to the extensive Smithsonian Institution, but they are separate entities in location so I’m pitting them against each other for fun. Here’s a quick run-down:

Price & Location

The National Air and Space Museum is in D.C. on the National Mall along with many other museums belonging to the Smithsonian complex. Entrance to the NASM is free, so we only paid for a Metro ride out to the heart of the city. Udvar-Hazy is situated along Rt. 28 in Chantilly, Virginia, fairly close to the Dulles International Airport. It’s about a 40-minute drive from D.C. to Chantilly or a 1.5 hour trip via combination of Metro and public bus. So if you’re only visiting D.C. for a short time and you’re staying in the city, Udvar-Hazy can be a bit tricky to access. Admission is also free, but there is a pricey $15 parking fee if you arrive by car before 4pm (parking is free after 4pm; the museum is open until 5:30pm). One extra bonus to the Udvar-Hazy Center though – the Donald D. Engen Observation Tower where you can take in a 360-degree view of the airport and the surrounding area. Other than that though, there is nothing next to Udvar-Hazy, so the location isn’t really conducive to other activities. Both locations have the same fees for optional activities such as the IMAX movies and flight simulators. So +1 for cost and location goes to the National Museum where you can easily visit for free and on foot if you’re already in the D.C. area perusing other museums.

Exhibits

The collection of artifacts across both locations includes over 60,000 pieces to document the history of aircrafts and spacecrafts, including airplanes, rockets, satellites, spacesuits, gliders, and balloons. Other artifacts such as documents and various media complete the collection. One of my favorite displays at the NASM location was a glass case in the World War II room that housed small objects like black-and-white photos, medals, hand-written letters, tiny song books, and other mementos in a scrapbook-like format. I’m trying to compare the exhibits in a fair and unbiased manner, but it’s hard when Udvar-Hazy has a space shuttle on display! When we visited a few years ago, Chris and I saw the Explorer, but it’s the Discovery that is currently on display in the James S. McDonnell Space Hangar. NASM does have the Hubble test telescope and the Skylab space station that you can go inside, but for me it just doesn’t get any better than getting up close and personal with a space shuttle. Plus there are just so many pieces at the Chantilly location (see the next section for details on square footage). I fact-checked this – there are more than 3x the number of aircraft on display at Udvar. +1 goes to Udvar-Hazy for exhibits.

Photography

Both locations utilize the same photography policy – commercial photography is not permitted without contacting the museum for permission, but photography for personal use is allowed and encouraged! Just leave the monopods and tripods at home. NASM does have more window light, but I personally enjoyed photographing inside the Udvar-Hazy Center because I felt like I had more elbow room to step back for wide shots and to get close for detail images. And I wasn’t just imagining the extra space – at 760,000 square feet, the Udvar-Hazy Center is almost five times the size of the NASM in D.C. which has 161,145 square feet of exhibition floor space. Wow! So +1 goes to Udvar-Hazy here.

And speaking of photography, here are a few photos from both locations starting with the National Air and Space Museum:

How about a spacesuit reflection selfie?! And that’s Mel and Marianne to the left. Mel was a pilot in the Air Force, so I think we definitely need to visit Udvar-Hazy next time for the sheer number of planes on display.

This is the “scrapbook” display in the World War II room that I enjoyed perusing.

And then here’s the Udvar-Hazy Center. Chris and I took these photos a few years ago, and we’ve visited the museum a couple of times since then for functions at work – the entire museum can be rented out for a special event. The entrance is quite impressive, as is the extensive layout and roomy floor space within the hangars. And of course, there’s also a space shuttle inside!

And the Winner is…

My own personal favorite is the Udvar-Hazy Center! I like the layout and the sheer size of the space. But if you are an avid air and space enthusiast, you owe it to yourself to visit both museum locations (especially if you’re a local). If you’re a casual fan and/or only in the D.C. area for a short period of time, I would stick to the National Air and Space Museum – they have plenty of displays and artifacts there to keep you busy and educated for hours. It truly is remarkable and awesome how much the human race has accomplished in the air and space arena over a short period of time.

It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and reality of tomorrow. — Robert Goddard

September 24, 2014