1 052010 Train station Unlike Austin, DC has excellent public transportation! Their train system was, as far as I experienced, delightful. I understand the locals don't always agree.
2 052010 White House Our tour was scheduled for 730am, which meant getting up at 5 to get downtown in time via airport shuttle, then bus, then train. We weren't allowed to take any pictures in the White House, but here's the end of the tour.
3 052010 White House This is looking down the side of the White House towards the Washington Monument.
4 052010 JD I asked JD to look presidential, like he was looking off into the future. If you don't know him, he's the guy I tagged along with. He went to play in a Magic tournament and do the touristy thing.
5 052010 Me I wasn't going for presidential here... by the way, the reason stuff's sticking out of my pockets is because we weren't allowed to bring bags or purses. So I brought a jacket with lots of pockets! I ended up regretting this when it got a lot hotter as the day wore on.
6 052010 White House This is... well, it's pretty obvious what it is, really.
7 052010 JD That shot with the gate's been in so many movies.
8 052010 Me It's beginning to occur to me that the jacket is going to be uncomfortable soon. Also, we haven't had any breakfast so we're getting hungry! We ate at a buffet place right by the Ronald Reagan building more than once.
9 052010 Washington Monument Okay, the reason this picture is funny is because some people see the monument as being, oh, a little phallic, so I was amused at the positioning in front of the two round-topped trees.
10 052010 Flaming sword This monument to an Army division (if I recall correctly) reminded me of the Ace of Swords from a tarot deck.
11 052010 Einstein This statue of Albert Einstein was in front of some sciency building.
12 052010 Einstein I'd seen pictures of the statue before, but never the base, which was a star field that was fairly accurate.
13 052010 Einstein and JD This gives you a scale of the statue. JD likes Einstein because he's full of science.
14 052010 Einstein and JD Here is JD inspired to be full of science.
15 052010 Einstein and JD Science, I'm telling you! SCIENCE!
16 052010 Einstein and I I'm good with the science, but mainly in it for the wonder in the natural world... which often accompanies the science and is measured in football fields or schoolbuses.
17 052010 Vietnam wall I hadn't known that there was a little trough for leaving mementoes and such.
18 052010 Vietnam wall Some of the conversations of the passing youth were a little frivolous, but that's youth for you.
19 052010 Vietnam wall Another thing I don't think I was previously aware of was how long the thing was, and how it tapered from small to tall back to small again.
20 052010 Vietnam wall At the shortest it was maybe knee-high.
21 052010 Vietnam women's memorial This was a very dramatic statue. It was annoying that kids kept climbing on it to get their picture taken.
22 052010 Vietnam soldiers I'm not a big fan of war, and this monument was very striking to me because it seems to me these men are pretty war-weary.
23 052010 Lincoln Memorial This is the view from the building on the back of most pennies. I say most because the new 2010 pennies that most people haven't had a chance to see yet have a shield on the back.
24 052010 Lincoln Memorial The famous President Lincoln statue- it was huge and full of grandeur and such, but I kept laughing because I was thinking about an episode of Robot Chicken that showed GWB getting into a light saber fight with Lincoln at the base of this statue.
25 052010 Korean war monument These trudging soldiers were next to another polished black wall. There were 19 of them, so with the reflections there were 38, representing the 38th parallel.
26 052010 Korean war monument Instead of names, this wall was carved with half-seen ghostly soldiers. The effect with the reflection of the soldier statues was eerie.
27 052010 Korean war monument The end of the monument had this pool that birds liked to bathe in.
28 052010 lawn This is a shady area near the reflecting pool between the Lincoln and Washington monuments. We had been running around all day and were hot and tired- so we laid down on the grass and took a little nap. It was fabulous!
29 052010 WW2 Monument This huge, flashy monument was very busy compareed to the others. Eagles, fountains, wreaths, columns, it's like they took a menu of monument characteristics and said "let's just put one of everything in it!"
30 052010 Washington Monument We headed over from our shady spot to the monument- it was unshaded, and I'm pretty sure just this trek gave me a sunburn. But I wanted to check it out!
31 052010 Washington Monument This is standing in the shade of the obelisk, looking over to the Capitol building.
32 052010 Washington Monument The monstrous tower eclipsed the very Sun! Which was a relief, actually.
33 052010 Washington Monument and JD Look, it's JD!
34 052110 EPA Building These lovely pansies (I think) were planted in front of the EPA building. Which because of the Simpsons movie had me saying "Eeeepa! Eeeeeeepa!"
35 052110 Behold! Corn! This guy on the EPA building had a wreath of corn on his head.
36 052110 Behold! More corn! Same guy... others had oak wreaths, flowers, and other assorted plantlife.
37 052110 Dept of Ag I always like to check out trees that I don't see in my native land. There were tons planted around the Department of Agriculture, and they were even labeled! This was a linden, aka basswood- named not for bass guitars, but the wood does make good guitars and drums- thanks Wikipedia!
38 052110 Dept of Ag Here's a huge, beautiful oak tree. I know we have those here, but this was an especially handsome one.
39 052110 Dept of Ag This here is a cherry tree- we were in DC too late to see them blooming, but leafing's fine. This particular one was planted by Hillary Clinton.
40 052110 Narwhal So, this day was devoted to 'going to the Smithsonian' which is dumb because there is not one Smithsonian, there's like a dozen or so Smithsonia. But there was a central castle where Mr.Smithson's tomb was, and which had a few museum pieces of various sorts- including this carving of some Inuits taking a narwhal to a fun party. That's my story anyway.
41 052110 Pluto On the way to the Air and Space Museum we found these displays for all the planets. Note, planets- of which Pluto is one. The distance from the Capitol building (standing in for the Sun- cheeky, huh?) was to scale, so the closer we got the more planets we saw.
42 052110 Pluto I have a small collection of pictures with me and the Plutoes from various displays and exhibits. I should get them all together someday.
43 052110 Neptune Wanting to get in on the act, JD points at Neptune. I'm amused at how you can see our reflections in both of these pictures.
44 052110 Air and Space Museum Here's the big open entry bit at the museum- hung all about were planes and spacecraft of all sorts. Being a fan of planetary exploration, I was happy to see Pioneer up there.
45 052110 Pluto- denied! It may not be clear in this picture, but it was very obvious how they tried to cover up the symbol for the planet Pluto. You can't fool me!
46 052110 Planets Another planet display, this time with Pluto and showing relative sizes.
47 052110 Venus My third favorite planet is Venus; second being Pluto (first is Earth, of course)- funny because it mentions Frig, which is also the exclamation a dinosaur often uses in this internet comic I read. Frig!
48 052110 Air and Space Museum This display platform was empty. It was dubbed "Sir Not Appearing In This Museum". It gave one pause to reflect on the vast emptiness of space, or something. Very Zen.
49 052110 Voyager My favorite spaceship, Voyager! I remember watching the pictures coming in on the news back in the day.
50 052110 Voyager There was also a display for the gold record that Carl Sagan helped to make, that was pretty nifty. I heart Carl Sagan.
51 052110 Armillary Sphere JD took a picture of this because there's apparently a Magic card called 'Armillary Sphere'.
52 052110 Armillary Sphere Well, here's the whole thing. Ta-daah! It's a model of the heavens, aka a spherical astrolabe.
53 052110 Moon lander That thing was a lot bigger than I thought it was- but still a pretty small space for 3 guys to live in for a few days.
54 052110 Thermal imaging I'm the figure on the right, holding up my phone to snap a picture. This showed how much poorer JD's circulation is. Eric says he looks like Iron Man.
55 052110 Hubble They had to make a mock-up of it to plan transportation and such, so after they were done with it they just painted the decoy up pretty and sent it to the museum.
57 052110 Capitol This was about as close as we got to the Capitol building.
58 052210 Bala Ged Scorpion Saturday, JD played in the Magic tournament. I did some work, then went to hang out and watch. For fetching lunch and being generally companionable, I got this card signed by the artist with a sketch on the back.
59 052310 hot dog Sunday, the tournament continued but I decided to head back into town to see the Museum of Natural History. This was lunch.
60 052310 Food stand And this is from where I procured lunch.
61 052310 Globe This very cool display was an animated projection onto a globe; I'd like one for the living room.
62 052310 Turtle Here's a giant (about a yard wide at least) prehistoric turtle.
63 052310 T rex Frig! I am dead!
64 052310 Evolution Do the evolution! Here's a whole mess of skulls of various hominids through the eras.
65 052310 Hope diamond It wasn't nearly as big as I assumed... maybe the size of a peach pit.
66 052310 Also-ran This giant blue diamond was also displayed, but wasn't getting nearly as much attention as Hope was, poor thing.
67 052310 Topaz That giant honking thing the size of a big softball there is a piece of topaz.
68 052310 Topaz Another gigantic topaz about the size of a small bathroom trashcan.
69 052310 Emeralds Great big emeralds, yessiree.
70 052310 More emeralds This display was mainly about the cut stones and jewelry, though there were also nice natural-state specimens.
71 052310 Rainbow If I can't have the glowing globe in my living room, I'd like this display please. I'd curl around it like Smaug.
72 052310 Copper Here are some pretty rocks copper makes. I knew about malachite, but I didn't know about turquoise.
73 052310 Rocks The big blue square gemstone in the foreground is a beautiful chunk of fluorite. And there's a malachite wiener behind it.
74 052310 Beryls Different beryls include emerald, aquamarine, heliodore (yellow), and morganite (pink).
75 052310 Topazes More topaz! Most of the bright blue ones are only that way because they've been irradiated, sadly.
76 052310 Crow feast Waiting for the bus, I saw this guy feasting on fries... I thought he was a grackle at first but he was huge. And brave; I got pretty close before he took off.
77 052410 Home! Right? The stormy sky canned our trip from DC to Memphis, so we ended up going to Atlanta instead. Hail Atlanta!
78 052410 Hotel We missed the connecting flight from Atlanta to Austin, so they put us in a hotel overnight. We got a handicapped room, with a large shower.
79 052410 Kit Delta also gave us each a kit with teeny little toiletries in it, and a very thin t-shirt with their logo, hoping we'd shill for them on the plane the next day.
80 052510 Home at last! Right? I got the worst view on the plane the next morning, but it took us back to my beloved Austin at last.
