Last Year at This Time ...

... we were on our way back from a European vacation and then preparing for our move to Vantage House.  Our one year anniversary of moving here is approaching.

Here are some highlights from that vacation trip previously featured in many posts.

Helsinki

Budapest

Bratislava

Scenes from the river boat

Vienna

Durnstein

Linz

Cresky Krumlov

Passau

Vilshofen

Munich

Landesberg

Notice all the food photos?  Lots of memories involve food.

Looking forward to our next trip across the Atlantic at the end of September - two weeks in Scotland where we will be based outside of Stirling and taking day trips from there.

Back to Flower Gardening

Rebecca, a friend I've made here at Vantage House, is head of the Resident Association, Landscape Committee.  She asked me last week if I'd like to take on one of the four garden plots that reside inside a picket fence in Sidwell Gardens.  I caved and agreed but not to plant vegetables but cutting flowers.

Monday she and I went to Meadow Farm Nursery to buy annuals.  No need to get perennials because the garden plots are to redone next year.  Annuals were on sale so Rebecca bought some too.

We had the place to ourselves on a Monday morning.

Now the temps this day were in the 90s, no telling what the heat index was.  We waited to do the planting until after the plot was in shade for the day.  

Here are my purchases setting in the garden plot.

At 2:30 we met there again to plant.  Rebecca had dumped a bag of top soil on her quarter.

Here's my quarter before I pulled out the tomato plants that another gardener planted there because she had too many for her quarter.  Don't know who planted the hosta and iris but I left those.

I made two beds with a path between.

Here's a sunflower I planted near the fence.

You can see Rebecca's planting behind mine.  She transplanted some astilbe to the back corner.

The balcony second from the top is ours.  I can peer down on my flowers.

Dan was up on the balcony and took this picture of us.

I'll keep you posted on how the flowers grow.  There is sun only at midday for several hours.

National Public Radio

Another trip - this time to NPR Headquarters in Washington, DC for a tour.  I listen to NPR mostly in the car.  When I was home by myself I had it on most of the day but now with Dan home and us living in Vantage House I don't need the radio for company.

The building was a renovation of the old Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Company warehouse.  I imagine that mid 20th century it was filled with telephone operators.  That system is long gone and C&P is now Verizon.

The space is quite lovely and environmentally certified.  They had a green roof but no photos allowed there because of the satellite dishes up there.  Saw the work spaces for All Things Considered and Morning Edition.  Also looked down on the on the hour newscasters, but again no photos allowed.

Here are the photos I was allowed to take.

Map of all the NPR affiliate stations.

Recognize Carl Kasselle and Pete Sagal from "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me"?

Click and Clack the Tappit Brothers from "Car Talk"?

Dian Rehm

Here's our tour guide.

The columns below are original to the building.

Here's how the hour is split up for All Things Considered each evening.

The control booth.

Inside the studio where the hosts sit (left) and guests or correspondents (right).

No echoes in this studio because of the way the walls are angled and because of those squares in the back.  Some have souvenir shot glasses in them from when Talk of the Nation broadcast from here.

All Songs Considered has a space where performers come for Tiny Desk concerts - very popular with all the staff.  Those performers leave souvenirs behind.

An Emmy.

Another great trip by Vantage House.  Next week I have another to the National Gallery of Art.