Day One

Photos of the day, including a slideshow if you so desire, can be found here.

We got up about 8 and headed down for a decent "free" hotel breakfast. No flippy waffle iron :(.

Headed out to the Rockville Metro station (see previous post), and rode the subway into the city. Turns out that the Smithsonian station is about 4 blocks down the mall from the Air & Space Museum. Walked up the mall past the castle that is the "actual" Smithsonian, and the sculpture garden in front of the Hirshhorn Museum of Modern Art. Entrance hall is pretty spectacular, with The Spirit of St. Louis, Chuck Yeager's X-1, the Apollo 11 moon capsule, and a number of other famous aircraft and spacecraft all right there.

The museum is laid out in a long configuration, with 3 big galleries (one of them the aforementioned entrance hall), and number of topical exhibition halls (WWI, WWII, Commercial Aviation, Naval Aviation, Pioneers, Golden Age, Wright Bros, a kids exhibit, Astronomy, Space Race, Computing & Aviation, Jets, Photography, and Rockets).

We spent about seven hours there. The Wright Brothers exhibit was my favorite. Seeing the original flyer (only the fabric covering has been changed from the original that actually flew at Kitty Hawk) is thrilling. A great deal of the exhibit is spent detailing how methodical the brothers were, and how their success is attributable to not just innovation but also to sound engineering practices. They also had one of the five remaining Wright bicycles on display.

Dad was most impressed by the full scale mockup of the Hubble Space Telescope. He had always envisioned something about the size of a 55 gallon drum. He was amazed to see something more along the size of a school bus. He also was impressed with the quality and quantity of models that were on display. There was a prominent display of a 1/72 scale aircraft carrier that he had seen featured in a model makers' magazine. It was approximately the size of the van, and had a full complement of 83 highly detailed aircraft and helicopters on it. The builder had spent approximately 20 hours a week on it for 12 years.

Back to the hotel, where we chilled for bit and then went to the Bugaboo Creek Steakhouse, which had a interesting twist on the "animal heads on the wall, staring back at you" decor. The centerpiece of the decoration was a giant moosehead over the fireplace, which from time to time would animatronically come to life and speak to the room, generally highlighting the night's special.