📷 It’s moments like this when I regret not having a newer phone (shot on an iPhone XS Max, 4 years old and still going strong).

📷 This is, without a doubt, the best time to visit Kenilworth aquatic gardens in DC.

American cities never stood a chance 📷

On the other hand, this view from Mt Vernon is worth preserving

American NIMBYism runs deep

The Worm Moon, looking intense

Bloodshed in DC last night.

It was the middle of another heat dome week, but the morning was cool enough to require long sleeves. The grass — freshly cut, of course — was covered in dew. In less than 20 minutes one could see sitting on the front porch: several hummingbirds battling around a feeder, two deer grazing just off the gravel driveway, a wild turkey, a rabbit, several blue jays and cardinals; I half-expected Snow White to skip down the forest path and burst into song.

The Broadband internet in West Virginia is not great, but it’s not terrible either. Why are there only 2 million people in this state?

• Southwest Florida is better for a short family vacation than Maui, conditional on the family not owning a private jet.
• Florida sand is superior to Maryland and Delaware sand. For one, it doesn’t collapse as easily; second, it is much easier to clean; ⊕ Sure, volcanic sand sounds cool, but have you tried washing off the glossy black detritus? Not to mention it is much sharper.third, on Sanibel and Captiva islands it is mostly made of quartz and broken down shells and is there anything cooler than that?
• More bird diversity makes for happier humans and while D.C. has a respectable population of birds, it doesn’t come close to Florida with the ospreys and the fish hawks, brown pelicans and roseate spoonbills, white ibises and snowy egrets, sanderlings and sandpipers, ⊕ Although maybe a few too many common grackles. woodpeckers both pileated and downy, and not a robin in sight.
• Is it just me or is sunscreen really so much better now than it was 30 years ago? With UPF swimwear you need less of it anyway, and the little that you do need is easier to apply, lasts longer, and just works better than whatever smelly Coppertone slurry we used in the 90s.
• Beach towels are useless.
• Spending a week in a zip code with no Instacart, no DoorDash, no Uber or Lyft or ad hoc taxis of any kind was refreshing, but I wouldn’t recommend it long-term. Although there was still Amazon next-day delivery and plenty of UPS trucks, so not all was lost.
• Physical books continue being better than e-books; the calculation will change for me as soon as e-book readers solve quick note entry — emphasis on quick.
• Where are all the Nightingales is a great way to start the day, on or off the beach.

• Green, walkable, good coffee, plenty of people on the streets but not crowded. Who knew.
• The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza is very well put together, but it has a remarkable story going for it so it would have been hard to mess it up. Making the audio guide non-optional was a good choice. You can easily spend hours and hours in it: we spent 4.
• Dining was good for the price, but I wasn’t blown away by quality at the randomly selected BBQ places. DC’s Federalist Pig was better than anything we’ve had in Dallas, and the Kalua pork we had on Maui was by far the best.
• That last one may not have been a fair comparison, only having three days to check out the restaurant and spending one of three dinners trying out the impossible burger (which was OK, but I’ll take a well-made black bean burger over it any time).
• There is a proper 7-days-a-week farmers' market that would have reminded me of the one in my home town in Serbia if it weren’t so gentrified (as in, more artisanal coffee stands and hemp candles than produce).
• The hipster breakfast place in downtown Dallas has blue tile and plastic chairs instead of reclaimed wood and old school benches, but don’t let that fool you: they do serve cortados.
• Four stars, will come back.