Washington- Saturday, March 14, 2015

It's St. Patrick's Day weekend, Ultimate Pi day, (3-14-15) and we're getting a little wet in Washington.

A drizzly rain has been coming down all day.  The bus driver dropped us off on the east side of the Capitol, and we trudged around in the rain to the west side.  Sadly, the dome is still under scaffolding as they fix the cracks in the cast iron.  The security line was long at the Captiol,  so we went on to the Library of Congress.  Once we got in we saw some of the art in the entry way.  When we looked from a balcony down in the famous reading room, Mr. L. asked why there was glass in front of us.  I said if Julie was here, she'd probably say its to keep suicidal people from jumping after waiting for a book for 6 hours.  ;-)  We saw the collection of books that was Thomas Jefferson's library.  Some of them were actually his and some are replacements.

We went in a tunnel under the street to the Capitol.  We didn't see anything of the inside Capitol itself, at least as we usually think of it, but the new Visitor Center is part of it and I've never visited that before.  There was a nice display of the history of the building, which had models showing how it and the neighborhood around it had changed, showing it at intervals of 50 years or so.  While I haven't been completely satisfied with our guide, I have to say she did the best job here.  She grew up only blocks away from the Capitol, and doesn't live far from it now.  I also got to see a few of the Capitol's statuary collection, which I've always found interesting.

We then went to Ford's Theater, and while we were able to get into the museum underneath it, we weren't able to go inside the theater itself today.   Many of the discount gift shops have been closed and torn down since I was here two years ago.  We went to the nearby Madam Tussaud's Wax Museum.  I was a little surprised at how much I enjoyed.  Taking pictures with the statues is encouraged.  They have all of the presidents and quite a few celebrities.  Taylor Swift is one of their newest ones.  It seemed to me that the figures looked better in person than they do in the pictures in their advertising.  (It's too bad Emma gets a little freaked out by them.  Too be honest though, Justin Bieber's kinda freaked me out a little bit too.)

We went to the Air and Space Museum, where we got lunch.  I then went shopping and found something for the girls.  Then I tried doing the scavanger hunt that Mr. L. had set up for the students. There were sixteen things they were supposed to snap a picture of, and I got one of almost every one. I had to ask Mr. L. where the "space toilet" was, although some kids were able to get a picture of a different one on Skylab.  We also weren't abel to get Sputnik because it's been taken down.  They are doing a lot of work on the "Milestones in Flight" gallery, and a few things have been moved.  Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis is currently sitting on the floor instead of hanging from the ceiling. 

We made it back to the hotel to rest and dry off before the cruise on the Potomac tonight.  The kids like it because it's a lot of loud music and dancing, but most of the adults aren't really looking forward to it.

.....

As expected the boat was loud, but it was pleasant outside on the upper deck.  Since the rain had stopped, I spent a while outside.  Chas, our bus driver, kept the party going with stobe lights on the bous on the way back to the hote.  Now we're trying to get kids to settle down.