Reading this week:

• Conquistadora by Esmeralda Santiago

The day after our adventurous and wooly trip to the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival, my super amazing girlfriend, her super amazing friends, and I went to the George Washington Memorial Masonic Temple.

Now, as well all know, the Masons are the public arm of the Illuminati, which control all world governments and stuff like that. This used to make me very suspicious of Masons, because I think they are being very rude to not reveal the non-extinct mammoths up in the arctic (I think it would be fun to ride one and have one as a pet), but now everything is cool because one of the aforementioned friends of my super amazing girlfriend is a Mason. This made him very interested in seeing this Masonic Temple, and I am sure it will help me get first in line for a pet mammoth. So it’s all very cool.

I had actually visited this Masonic Temple five years or so ago, before I knew any Masons. I remember it being a very interesting time, and I also remember them being very into George Washington. I realize this makes sense, but man you have no idea if you haven’t been there. This memory was not only confirmed but massively boosted upon this visit. A little later I was trying to come up with the tenants of a truly American religion with my super amazing girlfriend, one that wasn’t like just Jesus fanfiction, involving instead like maybe eagles and stuff, and she pointed out that George Washington is already well on his way if not already an American god (American God?). At the Masonic Temple, this is evident by the sheer and overwhelming number of George Washington relics they have, turning the whole temple into more or less an architecturally impressive reliquary. Going through the things I managed to snap pictures of, a short list of George Washington objects include:

• His ceremonial masonic trowel
• His town house desk
• Chairs from his town house
• Multiple objects made from trees more or less loosely associated with him, including: a gavel, a carved wooden book, a picture frame, and just a normal block of wood
• Many parts of his house at Mt. Vernon, including a cypress shingle, a wood rain gutter (how and when did someone take this?), and a wrought iron nail
• His bootstrap
• His spurs
• A tea caddy and gaming pieces
• A different tea caddy
• A silver dish cross
• A strand of his hair
• A different lock of his hair
• A leather bucket from the Alexandria fire company he helped form
• The Washington family bible

I actually have to admit I am being a little coy with that list. The above list is like, the relatively normal things they have associated with George Washington, because I think the more interesting things are those associated directly with the death of George Washington, along with his two funerals. This list, if you ask me, contains the far more bonkers things and also my favorite objects. It feels like they have every object that was within a 100′ radius of the dead George Washington. For example, they have:

• The clock that was in the room when he died (above picture, far right; they disabled it to mark the time of his death, leaving both a morbid memento for Mrs. Washington and also ruining her clock? She gave it to the Masons)
• The pocketwatch used by Dr. Dick at Washington’s deathbed
• A coffin strap used to carry him
• The trowel (not the ceremonial one) used to seal the new marble sarcophagus in his tomb.
• A candle from his funeral
• A mourning armband worn by a friend at his funeral
• A paste gem knee buckle worn by some dude at Washington’s funeral
• The sabers that were laid on his tomb
• A commemorative shoe buckle (one of my favorite things and I hope when I die people make commemorative shoe buckles)
• And several objects made from Washington’s first casket, including a pin and a cup. A cup!

I mention all that just to say that if you visit the George Washington Memorial Mormon Temple, which I recommend because it is great, you should know what you are getting yourself into. But to start at the beginning, the tour was very nice. You meet in the main entryway, which includes giant marble columns, giant paintings featuring George Washington, and a giant statue of George Washington in his full Mason regalia. Normal stuff and if it had more natural lighting I might push to do up our living room in a similar way.

The tour was led by a very nice man who was himself of course a Mason. During the course of the tour you go higher and higher up the temple, which focuses on being tall. You go higher via an elevator which is cool because it actually goes up at a 7° incline because it is at the edge of the tower and the tower goes up at an (on average) 7° incline. Beside the entry hall there is a recreation of the Masonic Temple room that was formerly housed in the Alexandria city town hall (across from Gadsby’s Tavern, where they also had some meetings). This is where a lot of these George Washington artifacts are. On the next floor up there is a room full of neat Mason costumes, and above that is where most of the Dead George Washington artifacts are, and then also a bust, a statue, and a painting of George Washington, all staring at each other more or less. Finally you ascend to the tippy top floor, where you can go out and see the views. We were also blasted by wind but that added to the charm.

The temple is probably one of the best views in the DC area. It’s higher up than the Washington Monument (well I guess I should say the other Washington Monument) and you are outside so you don’t have to just peer through teeny tiny windows. You can really look out over the landscape. We could quite literally see our house from there. It’s in the above picture, towards the left. I guess you have to squint to see downtown Washington from there though, but then again who wants to see downtown Washington when you can look down King Street and admire the might Potomac river. Amiright? VA forever, DC sux.

Anyways after that they take you back down and you exit via the gift shop. It was a very nice gift shop and if you ever need a Mason-related present it is the place to go for sure. They had quite the line of Christmas ornaments. Anyways if you are in town I recommend a visit, which I realize is what I almost always say at the end of these things. But it was closed for like two years so get those tickets while you can!

Reading this week:

• The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books by Edward Wilson-Lee
• Hero of the Empire by Candice Millard
• Fighting the Slave Hunters in Central Africa by Alfred J. Swann

Two weekends ago, as this is published, because that’s when it was, my super amazing girlfriend and I went to the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival! I would have written about this earlier, but I got distracted by KitchenAid attachments.

We had been looking forward to this festival for quite some time. My super amazing girlfriend is a super amazing knitter as well as spinner and is therefore extremely dedicated to the textile arts, which this festival of course celebrates. I am more of a casual fan, because I realize that if I am ever relegated to living in a hut by necessity instead of choice knowing how to operate a loom would be a handy skill. Anyways, my super amazing girlfriend was so excited about this event that two of her friends came down from Boston to attend with us, and another knitting enthusiast friend of ours came along too. It was quite a crowd!

The day itself dawned rather gloomy and it in fact rained on us all day, though this was overall fine. The sheep didn’t seem to mind, nor did all the people attending the festival. It was quite the crowd, which meant we were shocked when we overheard a lady on a phonecall celebrating the fact it was so muddy because she thought it had driven the crowds away, maximizing her own ability to score the best deals on yarn. There were a lot of people!

The first thing we checked out when we arrived at the Sheep & Wool festival were the sheep. Our entire crowd were all fans of sheep, and how could you not be, really? They are very cute and almost tautologically fluffy. We stopped into a judging booth where they were judging sheep, which is a little unfair because all sheep are wonderful in their own way, and then wandered through all the rest of the booths filled with sheep.

Going through my camera roll the vast majority of the pictures I took were of sheep. As you can see from the picture directly above, I was far from the only one. These sheep were like rockstars man, except well I was going to say better behaved but I guess they probably also leave a mess wherever they stay for the night. They live off a much cheaper diet however, though I suppose sheep and rockstars probably have similar haircare needs.

Anyways the point I was winding up to is that my impression is that the sheep portion of the festival and the wool portion were actually pretty separate. I mean they were all mixed together and overall it is a celebration of the things you can do with hair, but there definitely seemed to be sheep people on one hand and then yarn people on the other and I am not sure how much of an overlap there is. Like, I don’t know how many of the sheep farmers that came to show off their absolutely fantastic sheep also knit, or how many knitters would know what to do if handed a freshly shorn hunk of sheep wool. Certainly a number would, like my girlfriend, who is awesome and can and has gone sheep to shawl in a very literal sense, because she is awesome (she is also going to do this in our apartment soon which I am very excited for). But I think overall the number of intermediaries between the worlds of sheep and yarn were a relatively small portion of the audience here.

Just one other observation before I move on. This observation is that it has to be weird to be a sheep at this event. Mostly what I am trying to say here is that in the above picture there are sheep pelts hung up right next to the sheep, which feels a little morbid. Like these sheep gotta be thinking “man everyone here seems to love me… but why?” and then you have your answer in the form of a sheep pelt. Rockstars don’t (I hope) have this problem.

There were other exciting sheep-related attractions at the festival besides just the sheep themselves. For example, there was a sheep dog demonstration, which was very fun to watch. The poor sheep seemed overall confused but man those dogs were excited. They had like five dogs and only typically had one at a time herd sheep. Meanwhile the others were all constantly just vibrating with excitement, which yeah, I get. Like, you’re a sheep dog, bred to do exactly this thing and now here is an opportunity to do it. So you’re like “put me in coach, I wanna herd some sheep” and herd them they did. They were good! Way better than I would have done. They seemed to have a really good time and the sheep did what they were supposed to. Go left, go right, go in figure 8s, go in the pen, go in the other pen, all because the nice lady whistled some things to the dog. It was great! The other sheep-related attraction was the lamb burgers and sandwiches we had for lunch, which if I thought the sheep pelt was morbid, look who’s talking, buddy. Very good though!

And uh, yeah. That was the sheep and wool festival. The above picture is just one of the barns full of different vendors vending different sheep-related products. There were also alpaca, lama, linen, and other fiber-based products as well. But I had a great time watching my super amazing girlfriend look at all the different yarns and stuff. I got a lapel pin out of the whole deal, which is really typically my #1 goal. And I think if I had a decent shop (I now understand the male urge for a garage) I would try to make a drum carder for less than like hundreds or thousands of dollars. Those things are pricey! Might get distracted by making fanciful KitchenAid attachments though.

Anyways the Maryland Sheep & Wool festival is a great time, way better than that piddly little one up north, you should go!

Reading this week:

• Tipoo Tib, Narrated from His Own Accounts by Dr. Heinrich Brode and translated by H. Havelock
• Rama II by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee (I am not sure either of these people have met other people, let alone a woman)

This is probably mostly an apology for whatever algorithm drives (or in my case doesn’t really) traffic to this site, but sorry it is late. This is entirely my fault, since no one else writes this blog, and really while the cause is me, the biggest victim is also me, because I do this whole project as a way to motivate myself and stuff and clearly I failed at that. So sorry, me, and also I will get my undying revenge.

This past weekend my super amazing girlfriend, another friend of mine, the friend’s dog Barley, and I risked death by visiting Great Falls National Park.

I had been to Great Falls I think just once before this past weekend. I visited because of course it was on Atlas Obscura. It is a fairly stunning place. My super amazing girlfriend and I live in Alexandria, which is on the Potomac river, and it is of course a cute little placid thing, despite George Washington’s hopes it would be the Nile of America or whatever. But you go just a little up it and suddenly there is this massive and violent torrent of water which I never would have suspected was there because I never studied geography too closely. Here is a gif of it, to complement the picture at the top:

After the gorgeous views and awe of nature in its rawest forms, I think the next most striking part of the park is how starkly they warn you that you will almost certainly die if you even think about touching the water. Their website is worth a peruse. They warn you this because it is true. Here is a Washington Post article describing the how and why of its deadliness. Basically, it is a huge volume of water flowing through a very narrow space, so the currents are extremely swift. And although the falls part of the falls, the bit in the picture and gif, look deadly, just down river is a placid-looking little part. But it is covering a irregular bottom with pits that cause roiling underwater currents of up to thirty-five knots! So people jump in for a nice little swim and get swept underwater and die.

In fact, I think it is the 11th deadliest national park. If you google “deadliest national parks” you get things like Outside Online articles listing the Grand Canyon, or Backpacker articles debunking that Outside Online article and listing Denali instead. They in turn it seems are based on this report going a little more in-depth. But they’re all wrong!

I mean maybe. None of them list Great Falls National Park because, I think, it is administratively part of the George Washington Memorial Parkway. The Parkway gets a whole lot of visitors per year at sites like Arlington Cemetery (well Arlington House, specifically), and while there are a lot of dead people there, not a lot of people die there. All the reports base their numbers on per capita deaths, and so the Parkway system itself gets a lot of per capitas. But if you limit it to Great Falls, it shoots up the list.

It’s hard to tell exactly how deadly Great Falls is. A sign near the first lookout claims seven people drown per year. That Washington Post article I linked to says that between 2001 and 2013, 27 people died. I found more recent articles about drownings, but none listing totals, so we’ll go with 2.25 deaths per year. The only number I could find for total visitors to the park was on the Wikipedia page, which in an uncited figure says 645,000 people visited in 2002, which is conveniently in our range for the Washington Post article. That final report I linked (here again) lists the deadliest national parks in terms of deaths per 10 million visitors, so with our numbers we have a grim 34.9 deaths per 10 million visitors. That puts it just below Big Bend National Park. If that 7 deaths a year number were true, it would handedly be the second deadliest national park, just behind North Cascades National Park.

So I am glad to report we didn’t die! In fact we had a very nice time. After the awe-inspiring falls, we walked along the canal trail, admiring the old infrastructure. The visitor center was closed, which was sad, because I remember it giving a particularly good overview of infrastructure and stuff. Always a big fan of canals, me, and my super amazing girlfriend is willing to indulge.

As we walked along the trail we eventually got into a slightly more rugged portion where we could admire the river going by. It was a gorgeous day and we got plenty of sun. There were a good number of people around but also plenty of space so a lovely time was had by all. The dog, Barley, seemed to enjoy the views. My super amazing girlfriend and I caught up with our dog-owning friend and we wiled away the hours. We eventually went back closer to the Visitor’s Center and enjoyed some ice cream from an ice-cream truck that had a captive audience and charged like it. A lovely day was had by all and we eventually parted ways, satisfied with our thrill-seeking scrape with death.