Went down this morning to the National Archives early this morning. I was on a quest to see the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. At ten after ten we were starting to wonder if they were going to open or not and they didn’t. Apparently they didn’t have enough people show up for work that they couldn’t open today. So, we go again tomorrow instead.
Since the National Archives wasn’t open we went to the Museum of American History. I’ve been conditioned to not take pictures in museums so unfortunately there are no pictures. If you like history (like I do) then the museum is full of interesting stuff. We started at the upper level the exhibits started with the Civil war and went through the Vietnam war. There is also an exhibit for the First Ladies. They displayed the inaugeration dress from each of the first ladies as well as china.
The second level has an exhibit for The Star Spangled Banner (this is the first flag made for the US) the flag flew over Fort McHenry in Baltimore harbor when ships attacked on September 2 1814. The flag measures 30 x 42 with 15 stripes and 15 stars. The stripes are 2feet wide and the stars are 2 feet in diameter. Pictures were not allowed in this exhibit but here is a picture from outside and the flag is roughly the same size.
Star Spangled Banner
This is the very flag that inspired Francis Scot Key to write the Star Spangled Banner song because it was still flying after the battle was over.
We spent a good 3 hours in the museum. Got us some lunch and then walked over to the Air and Space musuem. We did take pictures here. =)
The Air and Space museum is pretty self explanatory so here are a bunch of pictures we took. We spent about 4 hours here and were able to see everything.
Gemini VI capsule
Mercury Friendship 7 capsule
Model of USS Enterprise air craft carrier
By the time we left our feet were sore from standing so long today. We sat on a bench on the Mall before we went back to our apartment. You wouldn’t be able to tell that just yesterday everthing was shut down and it was pretty much a ghost town and we didn’t have to look for traffic on the Mall. Today however was a different story.
Yesterday:
no traffic on national mall
Today:
buses lined up in front of air and space museum for tour groups
Tomorrow is the National Archives as we were told it would be open.