Hey there!

My wife and I spent some time last week in D.C., one of my favorite cities. I needed to conduct a couple of video interviews for use in a short documentary I'm making about the conservation movement in the botanic garden world, and we needed some time away to enjoy each other's company. Our fifteenth anniversary is coming up at the end of the month, so a hotel in Dupont Circle was our getaway spot. Thursday was spent driving, and after arrival, filming. I met with Andrea Kramer and Abby Hird, both employees of the global organization Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI). Andrea is the director of BGCI operations here in the U.S., and Abby is a BGCI representative who works at the Arnold Arboretum in Boston. The two of them spoke during the interviews about the work being done all over the world, and especially domestically by BGCI to realize the conservation potential of botanic gardens and arboreta. We met to do the filming at the United States Botanic Garden, and while I was there, I took a few photos from an artists wall of sketches by young people. I was particularly moved by a group of drawings from a group of elementary and middle school students from New Jersey who, it appeared, had been tasked with imagining how we might save the planet through collective action. I'll post photos of those sketches, as well as an image of Andrea and Abby in my next post. Friday, Erika and I walked from Adams Morgan to the Jefferson Memorial taking in all that is D.C. on a beautiful Spring day. Darlin, if you're reading this, I had a great time in D.C., and the past fifteen plus years have been the best of my life!