B is for Bon Voyage: Washington D.C. (part 2)

In addition to perusing monuments and buildings alike, we also did our fair share of wandering through museums. They have quite a collection of museums in DC… and most of them are free.

We saw a bunch of wonderful things. We went to the National Air and Space Museum first, because when you ask your driver to take you to the Smithsonian, that's the one that he apparently thinks you will like the best. We got there an hour and a half before it was due to close, but we did a quick lap around and even watched a slightly alarming video in the planetarium. Earth is super small, by the way, was the take-away from that particular experience. Well, that and the fact that being married to a Wright brother would probably have been challenging.

We went to the Natural History Museum and saw things like bones and mummies and sea creatures (which I am inordinately afraid of, by the way). The Hope Diamond lives there, but I actually liked some of the other rocks better. Who's surprised? No accounting for taste I suppose.

We also visited the American History museum and learned about every war that America has ever fought. As it turns out… there are quite a lot when you lump them all together in one exhibit. Did you know that my current state was previously an "unorganized territory"? I suppose some things never change… (kidding Oklahoma. I kid because I love.)

On the non-Smithsonian agenda, we hit the Newseum, which is a museum dedicated to the news process. This one was NOT free, but included some pretty cool things, including a hall of front pages from all over the country, updated on a daily basis, and part of the Berlin wall.

We even dropped by the conservatory, where we proved conclusively that I couldn't survive in a jungle or amazon-like climate. The plants were varying and quite lovely… but it was toasty warm and that was sort of a striking contrast to the ridiculously cold day we had started with.

After all the museums closed, the BHO and I weren't entirely sure what we wanted to get up to. In a fit of sheer genius, she suggested we go to a dry bar to get our hair done (if you don't know us, we are notoriously lazy about doing our very thick hair. I wear my hair in a braid 90% of the time for this reason). Best. Decision. Ever.

Oh. I also saw pretty buildings that I didn't identify. But they are pretty, and therefore must be shared.