A Night At Wolf Trap

Washington DC (see the picture)
N 38 52.736 W 077 01.507

We had lawn tickets to see H.M.S. Pinafore at Wolf Trap. Jenny stayed behind at the boat, because she wasn't feeling good and because Pinafore is just not her kind of music.

Our fun started on the way out there. On the subway, people were like people always are on subway trains. They are morose, they grimace, they don't speak, and they avoid eye contact. It's wierd. When we got off the train, most other fellow passengers that got off with us all boarded buses to their final destination. We got on the Wolf Trap shuttle. The transformation was instantaneous. This subset of the subway riders were smiling, animated and talkative. They were on their way to have fun.

We sat out on the lawn and watched the people. Many people brought picnic dinners. Not sandwiches, but elaborate dinners with wine and cheese, and shrimp and fried chicken. Some people even had metal wine glass holders that stick in to the grass to hold themselves up. After dark, their wine glasses had LED lights in the stems that lit them up.

There were a lot of children there. It made us feel guilty that we never exposed our kids to good music when they were young. As as result, they're not interested in it today. Our fault.

Watching the performance from so far away wasn't as much fun as we thought. It was hard to hear clearly. We also wished that we brought the binoculars from the boat. It also got chilly, so we wrapped ourselves in a blanket.

At intermission, I walked around. When I returned, Libby was all excited and all packed up. She said, "We have free tickets!" It seems that somebody walked up to Libby and said, "We're leaving. Would you like our tickets." Thank you Libby for looking so deserving.

That was great. We moved from the lot to an orchestra seat in row F. Wow. We could hear great and we could easily see the faces of the actors. That made it much more enjoyable. I guess that's why they get $45 for those tickets instead of $8.

Anyhow, we really enjoyed the show. H.M.S. Pinafore is a wonderful opera, with great songs and good humor. Even 120 years after it was written, it's still funny. Judging from the number of young people there enjoying it as much as we did, I'll say that it will still be popular at 240 years of age.

At the end of the night Libby said it all, "This has been a GREAT evening."