The Museum to End All Museums.

Today we spent the whole day at the Smithsonian Museum.

We caught the Metro to the Smithsonian stop and an easy walk to the museum which takes up about 4 city blocks. On the way to the UG station we saw an old favourite  now gone. To the left Safeway and not a woolworths store in sight.


Toured the Aeronautical and space center. I had done this back in 1982 so I thought that there wouldn't be much change but I was very wrong. Either I hadn't seen it all or it had changed quite a bit. Obviously there were newer space exhibits but the Planes on display had increased as well.

Many full sized REAL historic planes hang suspended from the ceiling, just as they were when they established their particular feat. It sure puts perspective back into flying when you see the small size of especially the Airline planes of the 1940's and 1950's.

 Taken inside an American Airlines DC 7 looking at the 1st class seating (Left) and the toilet (Right).
At least somethings don't change over time.

The cockpit of the AA Airliner is seen Left and the nose of the plane can be seen to the right. Flying since those days has certainly changed.




There are a lot of space exhibits but surprisingly no shuttle or space station exhibits which I found to be strange.

Above can be seen a Apollo Lunar Module and the Mars Rover explorer. All in all we spent 6 hours going over the museums that interested us. Jim went off on his own and I to what interested me. Totally exhausted and will sleep well at the KGB headquarters here in Washington. They had to do something  after the cold war ended! I don't think running a Hotel was a great choice.

Off to Baltimore tommorow. We'll go via Bull Run and Fredericksberg if time permits.

Neil W