National Air and Space Museum
DAY 10 – NATIONAL AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM
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Another day with lots of walking and a great museum. Today was the day for the National Air and Space Museum, along the National Mall.
Once again, we took the MetroRail. I tell ya, that's the way to go if one stays in the suburbs and wants to go into town.* Despite the hour later than the average rush hour, we had no real trouble finding a parking space, even for our Beast of a truck. The train was waiting for us.
On the way in, we realized that the Yellow Line would allow us to skip a lot of stations, creating a shorter ride, by changing from the Blue Line to the Yellow Line at either Kings St Station in Alexandria, or at the Pentagon (underground) station. We chose to try this today, changing at the Pentagon. That avoided going around to the north, across the Potomac at a point further north, then dropping southeast to the same station (L'Enfant Plaza) as we needed.
Found the entrance to the NA&S Museum and started in. We'd almost finished the ground floor when it was time for lunch. I swear that half of DC is under rehabilitation, because the food court at the Air Museum was closed. We walked over to the National Gallery of Art for lunch -- nice cafeteria over there. On the way over, we looked down the Mall one way to see the Capitol, and the other way to see the Washington Monument (also under rehab this summer).
One of Buzz Aldrin's spacesuits:
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Replica of the Hubble Space Telescope:
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When we got back from lunch, we took several more hours to finish it up. We couldn't read every single placard, it was detailed. It was wonderful to see the following: the REAL Spirit of St Louis plane that Lucky Lindy flew, the REAL Wright Bros. 1903 plane, the Skylab 4 command module. What was a big bummer to us both was that the Apollo 11 command module is off gallivanting around the country, currently up in Washington State. It won't be back to DC until 2025. Grrrr!
Skylab 4's command module:
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Spirit of St Louis:
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Wright Bros. 1903 flyer:
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One of Amelia Earhart's planes:
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Can you believe, we went off this morning and left behind our good cameras? They've been in the back of the truck for so long, but we took them out when we got to this hotel. We remembered them yesterday, for Arlington, but for some reason, we left them at the hotel today. So we took photos using our phones. In many ways, it was a blessing not to have the albatross around our necks all day, but we had to be careful about using our phones as cameras, especially me. I was down to about 50% power and I still had to use the Metro app to find out departure times and iMaps (which uses a lot of power) to get us from the station to the hotel.
When we rode the train back to the Franconia-Springfield Station, we reversed what we did this morning. We rode the Yellow Line as far as the Pentagon Station, then got off and waited for the Blue Line -- about 6 minutes to wait. The parking garage at F-S was relatively easy to get out of, just more traffic than there was yesterday. It's about a 10-14 minute drive in each direction to this station from our hotel.
So far, I've found that we made some good decisions about this trip. The hotel is in a good, fairly quiet location. Though the hotel's location says "Alexandria/Fort Belvoir", it's actually in a subdivision called Woodlawn. It's about 3-4 miles from here to Mount Vernon (on the list of "things to see"). It's 5 miles to the Metro Station which is the end of the Blue Line, and I understand that Huntington Station is about as close (the end of the Yellow Line).
Donna
US Capitol Hill and Surroundings
DAY 11 - US CAPITOL HILL AND SURROUNDINGS
A trip to DC involves a lot of walking, riding a train or bus, or both. Today, it also meant getting wet. It rained. Fortunately we were mostly prepared by having one umbrella with us -- no easy feat when we were limited on what we could take into the US Capitol Visitor Center.
This morning we rode all the way from Franconia-Springfield Station (the end of "the blue line") into DC without changing stations. We got off at Capitol South Station and walked (dry at this time) to the Capitol Visitor Center. We had a tour scheduled by our representative for 11:20, but we were there in plenty of time and got to look at quite a few of the exhibits even after going through the Security line and then the "short line" for folks who had reservations for tours through their Congressman or Senator.
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We saw the "sister" of this statue in Tuscumbia a few days ago!
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It was quite a nice tour. We saw a short movie, first, then were taken into the Capitol Bldg. They don't take you to very many places. The Rotunda is the highlight and the focus, and also the Hall of Statues.* We passed Paul Ryan's office and the office of the Majority Whip, they showed us where the Senate and House chambers were and told us how we could get passes to the gallery. Though Trump was scheduled to speak to Congress today , passes were in high demand and therefore not a lot left, so we didn't even try.
I wonder how many people have photographed the Rotunda:
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or the Room under it:
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We used the tunnel to go over to the Library of Congress, but you can't see a whole lot unless you have a Library of Congress library card, which is a rigmarole to get. It's a researchers pass. There was a small display for George and Ira Gershwin, and some wall displays for Marvin Hamlisch. THOSE got my attention.
A Gutenberg Bible in the L.O.C.:
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I was in awe.....George's piano. A little background information: when George and Ira were growing up, Ira got the piano lessons and didn't want them, but George wanted them. Ira taught George whatever he'd learned at lesson that day, and this went on and on until Ira complained to his mother, give George the lessons, they're a waste of money on me, all I want to do is write poetry! George got the piano lessons.
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Ira's typewriter. Another thing to be in awe of, as those brothers wrote some awesome pieces now considered classics!
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The Supreme Court Building, though we didn't go in:
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We chose to go back and eat in the Capitol Visitor Center cafeteria, whose prices were "okay".
From there, we chose to walk to the National Archives. At first it was a pleasant walk, as things were breezy and had cooled down a little. Then it started to rain. By the time we got two blocks from the National Archives, it was coming down pretty hard. Two of us crammed under one umbrella was not fun, especially when the wind was attempting to turn said umbrella inside out! We thought we were at the wrong door for the Archives until the guard said, "this one is for groups and the military." Military? Does retired count? Yes, if you have your ID. Of *course* hubby had his ID, so we got head of the line privileges.
What an honor it was to see the original Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, as well as the Magna Carta. Awesome, even though NO PHOTOS were to be taken anywhere inside that building. OK, we could live with that.
By the time we got out of the Archives, the rain wasn't quite so bad. I bought an umbrella as my souvenir from the Archives, so now we had two umbrellas. We walked over to the Archives Metro Station, discovered it was a Yellow Line, and got on the next one heading our way. We then transferred at the Pentagon Station, to a Blue Line. We're getting good at this Metro stuff....scary!
As you might expect, Security is everywhere in DC. Some museums have airline style metal detectors and have you put purses, bags, items in your pocket through a screening. Most don't allow food of any kind -- not even the Tic-Tacs you might keep in your purse, though they might be okay with the hard candy you keep there if you are a diagnosed diabetic or hyperglycemic. Hubby usually carries a tiny pocket knife with him, but has left it back almost every day.
Donna
Hopping around the museums!
DAY 13 - MUSEUM HOPPING ON THE MALL
And so ends our trips into the city of Washington, D.C.
We did our last day there by going museum hopping. We took the Metro into the Federal Triangle station on the Blue Line, and walked over to start at the National Museum of American History.
Because we were choosing to do 3 museums in one day, we wanted to see what we considered the highlights.* In the NMAH, the first order of business was to see the flag that flew over Fort McHenry and inspired Francis Scott Key to write the Star Spangled Banner. Unfortunately NO photos were allowed to be taken in that section, but we were in awe of this beautiful sight anyway. We moved on to American Stories, where we saw a number of inventions including one of the first sewing machines, an early telephone, an early Edison light bulb, and more. Taking one around to more modern times, I was stunned to see things like an Etch-a-Sketch, a Speak-and-Spell, and an old Apple II computer in that section. The Hall of Music and the one about American culture is totally shut down, most of the stuff placed in storage until they can get a new exhibit opened -- this fall. I was bummed again not to see Dorothy's slippers from Wizard of Oz, the Fonzie jacket from Happy Days, and a couple of other things. They did have some furniture from the set of the TV show All in the Family, namely Archie's and Edith's living room chairs. We also went through sections about the American Presidents, just to find Abraham Lincoln's top hat, and Thomas Jefferson's lap desk.
Prototype sewing machine:
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Archie and Edith's chairs, All in the Family:
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I am officially old. I had one of these in my very first elementary grade level classrooms:
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Abraham Lincoln's hat:
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Alan Shepard's space suit:
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We then hopped over to the National Museum of Natural History, just to see one thing: the Hope Diamond. We were not disappointed. We saw that and a lot of other beautiful jewelry, then moved on again.
The Hope Diamond:
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This one's for you, AZBuck and PMount. It's the Tucson Meteorite!
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Third museum was the National Gallery of Art, which is NOT a Smithsonian institution. We went through more galleries in there than I could count. My favorite things were mostly the sculptures and the furniture.
Hubby's DaVinci painting photo. It's the only DaVinci currently on display in the Gallery of Art:
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When we'd had about enough, we walked up to the Archives Metro Station and took the Yellow Line as far as the Pentagon station. We only had to wait about 1 minute to catch the Blue Line the rest of the way, as it was right behind this Yellow Line train. Between the two of us, we probably have $12 worth of fare left on our SmarTrip cards. Since we live more than 100 miles from DC, we can apply for a refund on our cards when we depart the area. I'll wait until we get home to CA.
Donna
