Today we really slept in, but we both needed the sleep. We intended
to start seeing the Smithsonian museums. We ended up at the Capitol
building. But again, you need tickets that are issued first-come
first-served early the morning. The tickets are free, but there will
still be a line even if we manage to get up early.
The
Museum of National History
stays open later so we went there next. Again, in two hours we got
through only about one-fourth of the exhibits. We saw an exhibit
about mammals, a short movie about evolution, an exhibit about
Sikhs, and an exhibit about Lewis and Clark. The mammal exhibit was
like a zoo except that all the animals were stuffed. We will try to
get back to this museum to finish it, but we might skip the animals
unless the exhibits offer something we didn't already see at the zoo.
Oh, I forgot, we also saw the Ulysses S. Grant memorial and the
US Botanic Garden, which Mary loved. She took lots of photos there.
After all this, we found a nice sidewalk restaurant and they really
helped us find food we could eat.
Tomorrow, we will set the alarm early and see if we can see some of
the sights that require tickets. Before we're done here, we really
hope to see:
The inside of the Washington Monument.
The inside of the Capitol building.
The remainder of the Air and Space Museum.
The remainder of the Natural History Museum.
The Museum of American History and Technology.
The Holocaust Museum and the Bureau of Printing and Engraving also
require advance tickets, but they are lower priority. We've also
been told that the Thomas Jefferson building and the Library of
Congress are the most beautiful buildings in the city, and we should
try to see them.
There is also the National Gallery of Art, but neither of us is into
fine art that much. But if tomorrow goes well, we might stay here a
few more days and see a lot more.
