More Adventuring

This week, Adventurers fell on Ash Wednesday, so we decided to go to the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

This was very nice. I thought we would have trouble with everything being super crowded because of the day, but it was actually pretty empty.

We got a really nice tour guide all to ourselves.

She was fantastic. Choclo and Oob were.... well, not bad, exactly. They wanted to go up and kiss all the statues of Mary and Jesus they could find. They wanted to kneel down and pray at each altar and smell all the flowers. This was a bit distracting to the rest of the kids, so I ended up taking the Mini-Adventurers on their own tour.

There are a number of chapels in here that are very special to me. I started visiting here as a little kid, before the upper church (the main part) was even open. That would have been a 5 hour drive from where we lived!

I remember touring it with my grandma and mom as a young adult when I lived in Baltimore.

This one is Our Lady of Sorrows and it was my Grandma Marie's favorite. Choclo, Oob and I lit a candle for her there.


Now that I live nearby, it's been interesting to see all the nooks and crannies. I particularly like walking around the outside and seeing all the saints featured on the outer walls. The portico on the north side is especially fun (how often do you see tanks and fighter planes in a religious mosaic? There is a nice part dedicated to military chaplains.).

I also really like the mosaic featuring Creation. That one is inside over the southern arm of the cross. It has a wonderful polar bear near God's hand at the bottom!

This time, it finally occurred to me that the thing to do with little kids on a quiet day was have them lie down in the pews and look at the mosaics on the ceiling. Wow! They were transfixed for a long time.

This is the newest mosaic. The largest dome is still undecorated and there seems to be a continual stream of new side chapels. Every time I go there seems to be some new thing going on. I wonder if the church will be completed in my life time. I rather hope it isn't!

It was a very nice start to Lent!

Anyway, you can take a virtual tour here. Have fun!