On my own in D.C.

I recently wrote a blog about how difficult it is to get me out of my home. I love home. However, two good friends, Ed and Broder, who live and work in Washington, D.C., accomplished the impossible -- getting me to visit them for a week in the nation's capital. I flew up knowing that they would be working much of the time and that I would be on my own to navigate D.C., if I was going to see the city -- and I did. I got a Metro pass, learned how to "read" the color lines, and set out to discover and enjoy the "people's city." Although the week passed quickly, I managed to see everything I wanted to see except the Lincoln Memorial. I toured the Capitol, photographed the Supreme Court and the Library of Congress, spent a morning at Mt. Vernon, attended a concert at the Kennedy Center, toured the Smithsonian. My two main goals, however, were the Newseum and the Phillips Collection gallery. I spent hours in the Newseum, seeing the studio where "This Week" is filmed and even being photographed delivering the news just like one of the big TV news people, and made two visits to the Phillips where I saw my favorite painting, Renoir's "Luncheon of the Boating Party." I'm glad I let my friends coax me out of my home so that I would take this trip. I think they helped loosen my grip as I am now scheduled to take a Caribbean cruise in December.