Ranger Nathan's Adventures: The National Mall

We had a whirlwind tour of the National Mall and the D.C. area on my birthday. We figured out the metro, and Amber had smartly found a great hotel right on the metro line, so it was very convenient.

We started with the Museum of the American Indian. The Museum of the American Indian is a very new facility and is packaged very nicely. There is an interesting film to introduce the museum in a circular theater that perhaps is most like a dancing arbor. The screen is made up of some sort of woven material, but beneath it is a large rock upon which images were projected and the entire "sky" of the room also became part of the ambience of the film. While the main story was told on the center screen, the rock lit up with water and ground images. The sky of the room had images that stretched across the whole sky; looking up into a forest canopy, looking across a village, etc. While the speakers spoke during the film, the actual speaker's hand crafts lit up in cases spread throughout the entire theater. The best exhibit is the "Our Universe" exhibit, adjacent to the theater, which actually envelops the visitor in many exhibits about the cultural traditions of many tribes across North, Central, and South America. Many other exhibits in the building blend cultural heritage with modern issues. Overall, the museum is about three things: 1) there are many perspectives from diverse native peoples, 2) these cultures are still here today, and 3) there is still an acute danger of losing a culture's identity, language, or traditions. We returned later to eat lunch there, and I visited the "Mesoamerica" stall and picked up a tamale, squash, and beans for an exorbitant price (but it was mighty tasty).

Next door, we popped into the U.S. Botanic Garden and were fairly amazed with what we found. There were loads of plants all over, but my favorites were the awesome displays of orchids and bromeliads. We didn't do a lot of reading and mainly kept moving through the museum.

For the next stop, we paid a visit to the front of the U.S. Capitol Building and took the obligatory picture. I saw a red-tailed hawk fly over. We saw the Capitol Reflecting Pool and the U.S. Grant Memorial.

The U.S. Capitol Building

After lunch, we hit the Air and Space Museum, definitely a popular tourist destination. It's overwhelming to see the actual Friendship 7, Apollo 11, Spirit of St. Louis, the Wright Flyer, and so much more. A special surprise for me was an exhibition of Alan Bean's paintings, which I knew a lot about but did not know were actually on display there. Of course, everything is a surprise when you don't plan anything (at least I hadn't planned anything).

When you have a fender bender on the moon, you've got to improvise. Above is the fender that Gene Cernan built on the moon out of plastic sheets and duct tape for the Apollo 17 mission. Without it, they were getting sprayed with moon dust when they drove. Below is a standard fender.

The Wright Flyer

We worked on hitting the rest of the memorials that we hadn't visited the previous evening and revisiting some of the others. We stopped by the Washington Monument, the World War II Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the Korean War Veterans Memorial, and walked along West Potomac Park before walking under the cherry trees to the FDR Memorial and the Jefferson Memorial. The previous day, we also visited the White House and some other sites including walking by many of the federal offices for various Departments. Amazing how close it all is once you're down there. It's also amazing how many Passport stamps you can pick up if you have your Passport to the National Parks book with you.