As the last major sight on our DC Staycation tour, my super amazing wife and I visited the National Cathedral. We had been wanting to go for a while, but we hadn’t figured out the bus system until recently, so it was vaguely annoying to get to from where we lived. But since our time in the good ole’ U.S. of A. was running short we finally made the trip.

It was pretty nice? I dunno man I’m not much of a cathedral guy. They don’t do it for me. I like certain churches, but overall Christian religious structures just don’t have the pizzazz of like the one Buddhist temple I’ve seen in person (lots of gold and cushions and statues, good stuff). But one of the appeals of the National Cathedral after all of our recent Staycation touring is that it provided a convenient endcap to some of the stuff we had seen. One example is that the Cathedral, like many of the places we visited, had very nice floors. But a more concrete example is just the previous day we had seen Woodrow Wilson’s old house, and the National Cathedral houses a dead Woodrow Wilson:

Speaking of racists, one intriguing display the Cathedral had going was about the former location of a stained glass window dedicated to Robert E. Lee and “Stonewall” Jackson. They took those windows down because, you know, hella racism, and they are in the process of replacing them with much better windows. It is always nice to see an institution being so thoughtful about racism, even if it is a century late or whatever. On a much different tone, also nearby is a Flying Buttress dedicated to the memory of Huldah Graeske Morris and George William Morris. I have previously told close friends and acquaintances that when (or if) I die I want a commemorative shoe buckle made in the spirit of George Washington, but upon seeing a commemorative flying buttress I immediately told my super amazing wife I want one of those too. A flying buttress! Who would have thought?

But back to tying this into our previous staycation adventures. Back in the Anderson House, which still has a number of centuries-old tapestries, there used to be even more tapestries. They were hanging in the ballroom, which is now these days decorated with some Japanese screens. After they died the Andersons donated those tapestries to the National Cathedral, so it was nice on this visit to round out seeing some of the Anderson’s old stuff we didn’t get to see when we visited their house:

The Cathedral was actually a fairly alright place for textile art. Besides the tapestries, the children’s chapel had all sorts of embroidery of like cute animals and other stuff that would appeal to kids (presumably, I don’t know what the kids like these days, maybe internet dancing? That could make a good tapestry). One thing they seemed really proud of was that in St. John’s Chapel they had all these kneepads decorated in needlepoints all about “noted Americans.” I picked a few of my favorites below, including John Paul Jones, who I assume is the namesake of the chapel, along with ole’ Bobby Fulton and one of my favorite authors Nathaniel Bowditch (who’s name is pronounced bao-ditch, not BOW-ditch, which should save you some embarrassment if you are ever trying unsuccessfully to impress the Commandant of the Naval Academy when you highlight the books he has on his bookshelf because you are so passionate about navigation):

Anyways that was the ground floor. You can also descend into the basement of the Cathedral, which has more chapels and the like and a sadly closed (while we were visiting) gift shop. But the two best parts of the chapel were first the towers and then the grounds. We only stumbled upon the fact that you could ascend up into the towers of the Cathedral because we noticed the elevators, but if you head on up you can get some really nice views of northwest DC from like the opposite perspective you (I) usually do because I have been up to the top of the Washington Monument twice and been up in the National Cathedral only the one time. It was very pretty when we were visiting in the summer with everything green! Make sure you go up if you visit the Cathedral:

After thoroughly exploring the interior of the Cathedral we head out to walk the grounds. It was pretty hot so we only did so much walking, but the best part of that walking was going through the Bishop’s Garden. It is “inspired by medieval walled gardens” with “terraced landscape features sculpture nestled amid plants of historical interest, native plants, and plants of the Bible and Christian legends.” So that’s neat. The fountains were tranquil and the flowers were pretty and the pathways picturesque and you got some nice views of the Cathedral (including the cranes doing repair work on the exterior which was very neat too) and it is a lovely little place to stroll. Make sure you don’t miss it while you are gawking at various space-related things.