I woke up early on Wednesday to see as much of the city as I could before I flew out that evening. I headed down to the National Mall to meet another friend there for breakfast. Not surprisingly, there were a ton of runners down there at 7am. I’d catch fragments of conversations as small groups of them ran past my bench. Somehow, things like “youth civic engagement” and “my junior year at Penn State” didn’t seem odd coming from people in shorts and spandex. This really is a unique town.
After a greasy spoon breakfast at Lincoln’s (across from the similarly-linked Ford’s theater), I headed to the National Museum of Natural History.
Holy crap, this place is cool.
Say, friend, did you know that the original mammal that--after millions of years--became the primates that became the humans looked remarkably similar to a house mouse?
Or do you know what a monotreme is? I didn’t either. It’s a mammal that reproduces and defecates out of the same whole. There are only two species known (platypuses and something called the echidna), and that’s probably a good thing.
The pygmy marmoset (far left) is too small to digest complex foods, so it sinks its front fangs into trees a sucks out the sap. (These are preserved animals, but the National Zoo has the real deal.)
And apparently, panthers have two-way mirrors in the front of their eyes that let light in, and keep reflecting in back into their retinas to dramatically improve their night vision. Amazing.
Of course, what visit to the Natural History Museum would be complete without dinosaurs!
By the way, this museum also houses the Hope diamond. The Hope diamond is a giant diamond now worth about $3,000,000. It was likely mined from India in the 1500s. It has a long and storied history, and was once part of the French crown jewels. Rumor (and wikipedia) has it that Louis XIV granted a noble title to the lucky trader that sold him the diamond.
It was recently set into that (semi-tacky, but who the hell am I to say) necklace.
After a great couple of hours in the Natural History Museum, I walked across the mall to the National Air and Space Museum. I want to live there. Seriously.
I knew that I was going to have a great time as soon as I saw the two Cold War missiles in the lobby.
They looked like they were leftovers from a James Bond movie set. I think everyone would have felt better if they knew that the rockets were never intended to fly. They were apparently designed for the sole purpose of looking bad ass. Seriously, Soviet Union, did you really need all of those letters on the side of your rocket?
And speaking of bad ass, my next move was to look up.
Keep in mind that this was all happening within the first 30 seconds of me being in the museum. It’s the happiest place on earth.
The museum is broken up into different sections, each representing important sectors or themes in the aviation industry. The civil aviation room chronicles the history of commercial flight, and has amazing exhibits from Eastern Air, TWA, and Boeing, amongst many others.
And this little gem was in the WWI room.
If that’s a computer, then I overpaid for mine.
One of the most jaw-dropping exhibits is the actual Wright Brothers plane. The actual one, not a mock-up, not a replica, but the actual first-ever airplane.
I could have easily written it off as a replica if I didn’t notice the armed guard at the exhibit entrance. This thing is priceless.
There were also great exhibits on spaceflight and military aircraft, but I’ll save that theme for the next post. It’s a good one.
M
