Dinosaurs at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum

Some of those dinosaurs were really big.  We really enjoyed seeing all the bones of dinosaurs and other rare animals.  Must say we spent a lot of time looking at bones.

Gems at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum

Can you say beautiful, gorgeous, priceless, shinny?  If you can, you just said quite a few adjectives to describe the gem collection at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum.  Pictures do not do justice to how pretty these gems are.

Hope diamond

Mammals at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum

So many mammals I had never heard of.  The displays in this section of the museum are wonderful.  Displays show the mammals doing something they would do in the wild.

Butterflies at Smithsonian Natural History Museum

For a fee, $5 for members, $5.50 for others, you can go into the butterfly exhibit at the Natural History Museum.  Gary went down to the café while I got to explore the exhibit.  Wonderful time.  Butterflies were flying all over the place.  Some of them only live for 2 weeks, some just days.  I could have stayed all day.  If you go, be sure to take in this exhibit.

do the tips of this moth’s wing look like the head of a snake?

Views from top of Washington Monument

To catch the elevator to the top of the Washington Monument, you need to go to the ticket center and get ticket.  They are free and really go fast.  Gary and I were there before 9 and only had a choice of !2, 12:30 or 2.  We chose the 2:00 time so we could go to the Natural History Museum.  Once you get the top, you can spend as much time as you want.  We made sure to check out all four windows.

 

Air Show at Andrews Air Force Base 2011

Gary and I took the metro to the air show.  There were two young boys, 6 or 7 years old, sitting in front of us on the metro.  We pass a cemetery and one boy says to the other, “That’s were people’s bodies go when they die, but the bad ones go to hell and the good ones go to heaven.” 
We really enjoyed the show, the first air show for us.  After going to the museums and seeing the warthog, corsair, mustang, and F-15, we enjoyed seeing these planes in the air doing all kinds of loops.
Thunderbirds and Golden Knights were there also.


warthog

F-15, Corsair, and warthog

just hanging in the air

Smithsonian Air and Space Museum at Udvar-Hazy Center

Had to drive a-ways to see the Museum at Udvar-Hazy Center, but it was well worth the trip.  Museum was larger than we thought it would be.  Cost $15 to park the car, but the museum was free.  We did see a movie at the IMAX which made us feel like we were flying.  Had lunch at the McDonalds located there.

Concorde

19 year old built this helicopter

used to lead geese back to their homes

Tour of our Capitol

Call our senator’s office on Tuesday and booked a tour of the capitol for 2 today.  I really enjoyed it, but it was not up Gary’s alley.  He’s more of a plane, guns, military type museum person.  We just missed the senate vote for the judge for the 9th circuit court.

It was said the every word spoken in the house chamber could be heard from this position.

National Museum of the American Indian

Huge building.  Most of the artifacts are on the 4th floor.  We watched a movie which was really good.  Did not eat in the cafeteria, prices too high for our pocketbook.

I really like seeing all the different Spanish swords.

Smithsonian American History Museum east

Wow.  What a great time we had.  Gary was wearing his route 66 hat and all kinds of people told us to make sure we saw the route 66 portion of this side of the museum.  This side covers the history of all the was the US has taken part in.  It also covers the areas of transportation in the US.

Smithsonian American History Museum West

We went to the Holocaust museum and then went to the American History Museum.  With only half the day left, we were only able to view the west side of the museum.  We ate lunch in the cafeteria there.  Pretty pricey.

Smithsonian Air and Space Museum

Hopped on board the metro-bus that comes to our campground and off we went for our first stab at catching the metro.  We had purchased our smart-cards at the campground and then were able to load some money on to them at the metro.  It was very easy to figure out how to go, especially after we asked for help from people around us.  Glad to say, they were eager to help us.  Gary chose the Air and Space Museum for our first visit.  We were not disappointed.  We watched the 3 films on the IMAX and enjoyed them all.