Day Two Part Two

Somewhere I could spend hours and hours (and believe me, we did) is the National Museum of American History.  I have always been fascinated by history.  Not dates and times and events so much as old things, and how people used them, and what was regular daily life like for people that lived in the '50s, '30s or 1800s. I love stories that can put you in a different place and time, and I absolutely LOVED seeing all of the random objects that tell such a story about our amazing country.  I am a bit of a pop culture enthusiast so I really loved seeing a lot of those types of objects.

 C3PO

Good 'ole Barbie and a 1974 action figure. 

 an old dentists chair

 

A jar for Leeches, old eyeglasses and fake eyeballs.

We ended up going on one of their guided 2 hour 'highlights' tours and we were very glad we did.  Our tour guide told us some fun stories and took us to some of the more popular spots in the museum.

 Julia Child's Kitchen.  My mother-in-law and I  had just watched Julie and Julia this past Christmas, so I felt a little 'connection' with this display.

K's dream car.  (just kidding honey) * K's note:  Actually the first car to drive coast to coast

A statue of George Washington that caused quite the controversy when it was unveiled in 1841.  It went from the capitol rotunda, to the east lawn, the Patent Office, The Smithsonian and finally it's current spot in the museum.  The current Washington monument was created to replace this after all the controversy.

 Fond childhood memories.  Kermit the Frog and the ruby slippers from Wizard of Oz.

 Our attempt at an Old Tyme photo.  I'm thinking our outfits just don't blend.

We took a little break from the museum to jaunt over to the Washington monument to get tickets to go to the top, only to discover you have to get them first thing in the morning to even have a chance at getting in.  I decided I didn't care enough to spend the time getting up early and waiting in line the next day, so we just took a picture and moved on.

Back at the museum we went to see Old Glory.  Because of it's age and fragility, they don't let you take pictures of it, but it was a pretty amazing site to see.  They used to display it with lights or something showing how big the original proportions were, but now they just show it as is.  It's had lots of pieces cut out of it by the families who owned it because of the tradition of giving a gift to visitors.  I wonder how many pieces of it still exist and people know how cool that would be to have that piece of history in their homes.

 

Another semi-fascination of mine...the Titanic.  This is an actual life vest and camera from a survivor.

 K reading about ships and lighthouses.

 A Really Big Train.

 It's Doc Hudson!  or as H calls him  Ka-Kahn.

I can tell my husband loves me when he doesn't complain about the amount of time spent in the display about the first ladies' dresses.  I'm not an extremely fashion obsessed person, but I do like to look nice.  I also love seeing what clothes tell about a time period.  I tried not to go too picture crazy, but now I wish I would have taken more.  K even admitted the exhibit was more interesting than he thought it would be.

 Helen Taft 1909

Martha Washington.  Can you believe a dress more that 200 years old is still around!  The lace cuffs and fichu are replicas, but the main dress is original. 

 Mary Todd Lincoln.  Can a persons waist really be that tiny?

They also displayed sketches of some of the gowns not currently on display.  I would love to see this exhibit again

 I used to dream about having a dollhouse so this was a fun exhibit for me.

After the hours spent walking around the museum we took a break and rested on the front steps.  They had a fountain with steps leading down to it so we took off our shoes and waded our poor aching feet and tried to figure out what we wanted to do next.

Things in life and marriage are not always perfect.  There were a couple of things that made me really grateful for this trip.  K and I had been apart a lot with travel from his job and we were feeling the stress of that and a few other things on our relationship.  This trip came at a perfect time and the way we spent it, walking, talking, discovering and just being together, really strengthened us.  It reminded us how much we enjoy each other.

Second, and maybe not quite as profound, was that I was able to do it.  I have never been a particularly active/healthy person, but last September K got me a gym membership and I have really been trying to become more healthy.  It is not easy for me and I often hate it, but I'm doing it.  All the walking on this trip showed me that my efforts have been paying off.  I really think I would not have been able to do it a few months earlier.

When we felt rested we walked over to the Museum of Natural History. 

 It was getting close to closing time so we didn't have a lot of time there, but I made sure we saw the girly things.  I could never wear them, but I LOVE looking at beautiful jewelry.  Even better is jewelry that has a story.

 Some of Marie Antoinette's jewelry.  It is so fun for me to see things in real life that I just read about in a story or saw in a movie.  This was one of those things for me.  The rest were just pretty.

 The famous blue 'hope' diamond.  There were two blue diamonds on display while we were there.  I couldn't get very good pictures though.

 We spent a few minutes in the gift shop trying to find the perfect souvenirs.  We bought the boys collector coins that you can get at each museum (I'm glad they're young enough to be excited over $1 gifts) and I looked for the perfect ornament.  It's become a tradition of ours since our honeymoon to buy an ornament for our souvenir when we travel.  It makes decorating our Christmas tree a fun trip down memory lane.

We had just ten minutes to make a quick run through some of the displays on the first floor of museum, before we got kicked out for closing time.

 As we were leaving, I noticed a group of elementary aged school children coming in with bags and I asked what they were doing.  Apparently they were going to have a sleepover in the museum.  I'm not sure I'd want to sleep in the same room as this guy:

 Since the museums were all closed we decided to walk toward the White House and hopefully get some dinner somewhere.  This actually ended up being a sort of frustrating part of our trip.  Maybe we were walking on the wrong streets, but we couldn't seem to find any place that was open and selling food.  At least not at a price we were willing to spend or felt like we were dressed appropriately for.  We eventually made it to the White House but couldn't even get remotely close to see it because of some event going on, although because of a commotion by the temporary gates we found out we had just missed seeing President Obama come by.  We didn't much care because we were sort of ornery and hungry at this point, so we decided to walk to the nearest Metro station and just eat when we got back to Alexandria.  Luckily we happened to find a Five Guys Burgers and Fries on our route.  Food we liked at a price we were willing to pay.  It was pretty much heaven.  We were happy on the Metro back to the hotel.