Yesterday (Sunday), we got up at a reasonable but not-too-late time and headed down to the Mall for some touring around. We decided to use a hop-on-hop-off tour bus to hit the monuments and get around. We parked by Air and Space and got on there. We enjoyed the narrated tour past the Capitol, Union Station, museums and to the Washington Monument. We got off there to see if we could still get tickets but they were out.
Our next stop was the Jefferson Memorial. We spent a fair bit of time there. I thought it was more important, given this trip is an edu-cation, not a va-cation, that we spend some time studying a few things Jefferson said. What better place to read his writing than on the walls of his monument? Again, it became clear that most people don’t pay much attention to the ideas. They’re focused on the big statue and architecture and history and anything but ideas. If you haven’t read them lately (or ever), they’re included in the Wikipedia article about the monument.
After Jefferson, we took the tour bus over to Arlington National Cemetery. Tourmobile is the only outfit that goes through Arlington. We only got off for the brief stop at the Kennedy grave site and then just rode through the rest (due to the time).
Next was the Lincoln memorial. Given what we had already done on the trip, I explained the sequence of events while sitting on the steps. Some people became free when America was founded, but slaves didn’t. Never mind (for now) the issue of secession, Lincoln freed the slaves. That was another good step, but it took over 80 years. Yet another 100 years later, Martin Luther King Jr. stood upon the steps of Lincoln’s memorial and delivered his famous “I have a dream” speech. Of course, that doesn’t mean all people are free, but it was another big step.
We hopped back on the bus and headed back to Air and Space. They were kind enough to stay open ’til 7:30 for us. I have to say, that whole museum is just packed with significance. I can see why it is the most popular single museum in the entire world. They have the most significant pieces from the original Wright Flyer to the present time. We saw Rutan’s Voyager, which I saw land at Edwards on its historic around-the-world flight, and Rutan’s SpaceShipOne which I saw launch into space for the first time in Mojave. They have most of the Apollo 11 stuff, the first airplanes to fly faster than Mach 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6. Okay, the last three are the same airplane (the X-15), and, in case you’re wondering, there’s no surviving X-2 (the first Mach 3 airplane) left. I could write about it all day, but I’ll move on to today…
Today was a day of lost and found.
We got up really early to head down to the Washington Monument to try to get tickets to go to the top. I had been around the monument before but never to the top, so that would be a first for all of us. We were the third ones in line. I chatted with the people ahead of us about airplanes and the kids made a friend. We went up in the first time slot (9:00 a.m.) and enjoyed the view from the top.
Shortly after returning to the bottom, I discovered that most of the pictures on my camera were missing. Everything before the end of the Air and Space museum was gone (that is, most of the whole trip). I wasn’t sure what happened but I did know that, despite knowing better, I hadn’t downloaded the pictures every night. Edi and I were both very sad at the prospect of having lost all of those pictures. I decided to switch memory cards just in case I could figure out a way to recover them. After a brief period of grieving (so to speak), we pressed on.
Our next stop was the American History museum. It had some interesting things in it (Julia Child’s kitchen and a nice transportation display including a Werner truck). We decided not to spend a whole lot of time there, though, as we had more to do. We went to the Old Post Office food court for lunch.
Next came the Natural History museum. It was shortly after entering it that Edi asked Erin where her camera was. After a moment of talking about it, she realized she left it in the bathroom at lunch. So Erin and I had to go back to see if it was still there. At that very moment, we were facing two picture losses (including one whole camera) the very same day. When we arrived at the bathroom, Erin went in. She came back a bit later empty handed. She was very sad and I explained that it was probably gone forever but maybe we could check one more place. I asked around to see if there was a lost and found and was pointed to the security at the entrance closest to the bathrooms. When we went there, much to my surprise, they had the camera. Erin was very very happy, as was I.
When we returned, we started to make our way through the Natural History museum. It has all kinds of neat exhibits. We especially liked the live butterfly exhibit. While it wasn’t free, it was worth every penny of the admission ($6 for adults, $5 for kids). It’s not a large exhibit, but it doesn’t take much space to house scores of beautiful butterflies. Edi and Erin didn’t stay so long, but Edison and I loved it. How’s that for backwards? I took a lot of pictures and some of them actually turned out pretty good. Edison insisted on staying until at least one butterfly landed on him. He got his wish. As for me, I almost carried one out with me (it was on my new “got liberty?” hat). I couldn’t help but think my mom would have been in heaven there.
… and yah, big rare diamonds, dinosaurs, and blah blah blah… 😉
Now our tour guide on the bus tour the previous day told us the White House visitor center was open until 4:30. So we high tailed it out of the museum so we could make it there before closing. On the way, Erin had to get her ice cream treat. Edison wasn’t able to have one due to… issues earlier in the day. But he did manage to find a big leaf (I think a Magnolia). As we made our way to the visitor center he was telling all about how he was going to make it into an airplane (detailed instructions and all). Then, crossing the last street, he dropped the leaf. We had to get across the street and he was very sad to have lost his leaf.
Unfortunately, after all that, our driver had led us astray. We got to the White House visitor center just after 4:00, which was when they closed. We were beat so we decided to just come back to the hotel early. I went to get the car. Before I left, Edison pleaded with me to look for a leaf for him. As I was crossing the street, I saw his leaf in the middle of the intersection. I turned to cross the other direction and just as I got to the middle of the street, a breeze blew it right into my path. I picked it up, smiled, and went on my way to the car.
We had dinner at Fuddruckers (yeah, baby!). They really do have the world’s greatest hamburgers, which is kinda fitting for this trip. After that, we came back to the room. I decided I better try to see if there was any chance the pictures were still hiding somewhere on the memory card. When I put it in the computer, I immediate saw what looked like a couple of corrupted files. Ironically, that made me feel a little better. I worked for a bit on the memory card and managed to recover over 500 pictures, which may well be all of them. The lost photos were found, and thus ended our day, thankfully on a happy note.
V-