Up, Up and Away!

Today we went to the National Air and Space Museum. Today happens to be the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, so how could I not have my picture taken next to the Apollo 11 capsule. I remember how excited we were when Apollo 11 blasted off and as it approached the Moon. On this day in 1969 my parents woke us up in what seemed like the middle of the night, so we could see the first men walk on the moon. It seemed like such a promise back then. The future shown to us by Star Trek seemed attainable.

The Apollo 11 capsule is small, the Gemini 4 from which the first U.S. space walk was taken is smaller, and the Mercury 6 that carried John Glenn into orbit tiny. Hanging above the the space capsules is another historic machine--The Spirit of St. Louis, which Charles Lindbergh flew solo across the Atlantic. It is also smaller than one imagines, even though it was never described as a large plane. We also saw the Wright Brothers' machine that first flew at Kitty Hawk and ushered in the age of the airplane.  But I was more interested in the Spirit of St. Louis and the Tingmissartoq, which Charles and his  wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh flew on two long trips. Perhaps because the Lindberghs lived in Darien and still had a
home there when I was growing up there. I also remember reading Anne Morrow Lindbergh's diaries while I was in high school.

The Timgmissartoq exhibit showed the scope of the trips the Lindbergh made by plane in 1931 and 1933 to scout early airline routes. Like most of the exhibits in the museum it provided just the right amount of information without being overwhelming or forgetting that people of all ages come to this museum. The Air and Space Museum is one of the most popular of the Smithsonian museums, as was evidenced by the crowd there today. The only one of the museums I've visited so far that had a similar number of people was the Natural History Museum.

I also enjoyed the Aircraft Carrier exhibit, which included a  fairly extensive area covering the War in the Pacific during World War II. The plane in this picture is a Douglas SBD-6. I took the picture because as a boy I had a metal toy version of  this plane. It is amazing the amount of history here that I remember within my own lifetime or was a part of my childhood. My other favorite exhibit was Legend, Memory, and the Great War in the Air. It tries to dispel the romantic images that make up our current cultural memory of World War I. The reality was a far cry from Snoopy and the Red Baron!

 We had some time before we were due for dinner with friends, so we also stopped at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Other than the Rodin "Back" sculptures, I was underwhelmed. I think my favorite moment was when a young father stopped at a sculpture with his two sons and asked them what they thought of it. The older boy said, "It looks like a lot of lines squiggled together." (Which it kind of did look like.) The father responded, "All drawings are a lot of lines squiggled together. But what do you think about this?" "It could be a spider," the boy said. Absolutely perfect. One entire floor of the museum was closed for renovation, and the exhibits are spare and spread out, so we weren't there for very long. As we were leaving the Sculpture Garden we passed this sculpture, "Last Conversation Piece" by Spanish artist Juan Munoz. The first thing that came to my mind was "Weebles wobble, but they don't fall down!" A woman behind us said it out loud. We had a good laugh about it.

I still have a list of places I want to visit in the area, but I'm getting there one one.  Well sometimes two by two. Until the next adventure...

A Two-fer

I don't have to tell you where we had brunch today.

After brunch we went into DC. I drove, thank you very much. Dennis directed me a different way than I would have gone, but he knows the city better than I do. We even found a parking space within a block of  our destination. I finally got to visit the National Museum of the American Indian. When we walked into the Potomac Atrium I immediately recalled the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. The outside is slightly reminiscent of the Guggenheim as well, but it does have an identity all its own. The water and landscaping of the grounds create a beautiful oasis not far from the Capitol building.

I'm not really sure what I expected, but the museum wasn't anything like I anticipated. It's very spare and spacious inside. There is lots of seating scattered throughout the building and odd niches like this one, which contains Toward the Sky: The Sacred Rain Arrow, a bronze sculpture created by Allan Houser in 1998. It stood in the Olympic Village of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

We spent the most time in Cerámica de los Ancestros: Central America’s Past Revealed. The exhibit of ancient ceramics from the Central American native cultures focuses on seven specific regions and highlights specific archeological sites in those regions. It was fascinating to see how the different cultures ebbed, flowed, interacted with each other, and either disappeared or survived.

The way the museum is designed is as much about contemplation and reflection as it is about seeing and learning.

As we walked back to the car we decided to stop at the United States Botanical Garden, which was literally across the street from where we'd parked, We just did a fairly quick walk through, and I do want to go back. But not during the summer. It's not really a place to go on a hot and humid July day.

Hiking Along the Potomac

During what has become our regular Sunday morning brunch at Murphy's in Old Town, we decided it was too nice of a day to spend inside at a museum. We don't get many summer days like this--low humidity and temperatures in the mid-80s, at least for the part of the day we'd be out and about. We looked at several options and ruled about half of them out because they involved traveling south on I-95, and driving home in end-of-holiday-weekend traffic mess. We settled on Turkey Run Park, which is up the George Washington Memorial Parkway from Alexandria.

Access to the trail is not well marked, and when we finally did find the beginning of the trail, the map on the board was faded to almost totally white. Not helpful. There are several trails that run through the park, including one that runs along the Potomac down to Roosevelt Island. We stuck to the Turkey Park Loop, although it wasn't always clearly marked either. At times the trail reminded me of our hike in the Bull Run Mountains Conservancy. Twice we had to cross a run, which I managed to do without getting my feet wet.

I find that I have to be pretty careful on trails like this. My balance is off a bit. Part of it is I've lost a fair amount of weight in the past couple of years, which has significantly shifted my center of gravity. Part of it is I'm not as young as I used to be. I may be in much better physical shape than I have been in years, but I'm also 54. Slow and easy makes it to the end of the trail.

Who knew I'd become so much of an outdoor person! I still sit with a good book an play the flute, but I've really been enjoying exploring the marshes and the trails in parks around the metro DC area.