Miscellaneous

Good evening & happy Thursday. I hope my post yesterday did NOT discourage anyone from visiting Washington, DC. It really is a pretty & clean city to be so large, and with such a diversity of peoples. So much to see, and it is free to enter the museums at the Smithsonian. We just managed to hit it at a time when lots of the schools were doing their trips to the Capital. Unfortunate for us, but again, I'm happy that the schools are still trying to teach our youth about the founding of our country. Just wish that the ones we encountered would have had more of a sense of solemnity about what they were seeing, and appreciating the cost to our forebears for them to have all the freedoms we have today.

Today we drove out to another Smithsonian National Aerospace Museum, and we had sunny weather, just a few school kids. I must say these youngsters were much better behaved, and while they acted 'like kids do', it was refreshing to see they were more interested in seeing the exhibits than being on their phones, hollering to each other, running around, etc. We were pleased to see them asking the tour guides questions, and as far as we could tell, being polite & interested. I can't remember all that we saw (planes are not my cup of tea,....really), but we did see the Enola Gay (the plane that dropped the bombs on the Japanese cities), and the Discovery (BIG, BIG ...carried the space shuttle). My DH used to work for the company that built a lot of the engines for many of these planes & other aircraft. So of course we had to take tons of pictures of LOTS of planes! <g>

Left the museum, had lunch with a relative of our friend, headed back to the hotel. Tomorrow is checkout. Our friend has a very early flight back to Yankeeland, so we will leave a bit later. We are hoping to stop at Mt. Vernon - the home of our first President. I've always wanted to see it, and since we don't expect to return to this area, I wanted to see it while we have the opportunity. IF our GPS will guide us there!

I would strongly encourage anyone who has a chance to visit Washington, and has an interest in history, to take an opportunity to visit if you can. Despite our aggravation with the
rowdy school kids, it has been worth it to revisit the Smithsonian. Time didn't permit visits to the Capitol or other historical buildings that are available for public viewing. We saw these on a trip with our daughter long, long years ago, so had decided THIS trip would be especially devoted to the Smithsonian.

Thanks for dropping by to visit, and have a wonderful Friday. See ya soon. Hugs