Anyone that knows me knows that I’m a big fan of aviation so we planned an entire day to visit the National Air & Space Museum. Now there are actually two locations – one is on the South side of the National Mall (which happened to be undergoing a major renovation). The second location – the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center – located at Dulles International airport was where thousands of air and space artifacts are housed in two enormous hangers, including an SR-71 Blackbird, The B-29 bomber, Enola Gay, a Concorde and the Space Shuttle Discovery.
We arrived just after the doors opened and didn’t leave until just before closing – we spent the entire day walking thru the thousands of exhibits and still didn’t see it all. If you’re an aviation geek like me, this is nirvana. Being able to get up close to aircraft that made history is truly and amazing experience. If you only have time to visit one of these two exhibits – choose this one and plan for a whole day! Fortunately, there is a “Shake Shack” on site when you get hungry so you can maximize your day!
For more info, check this out: https://airandspace.si.edu/visit/udvar-hazy-center
National Air & Space Museum – Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center
Not only do they display these amazing artifacts, they also have a large shop in one end of the hanger that actually works to restore vintage aircraft for display!
Aircraft Restoration
The next day, we headed over to the Museum of Natural History for another great experience! There were so many exhibits to see in all of the different rooms, wings, exhibits, nooks and cranny’s that you could spend days and not see it all! Some of exhibits that caught our eye are below! In addition to the numerous animal, dinosaur exhibits, they had a set of rooms just for rocks, gemstones, diamonds, etc. Who would have thought you’d walk up to the “Hope Diamond” on your tour??? Definitely worth a stop if you are in D.C.!
Natural History Museum
We were so impressed with our walks around D.C. during the day but one evening, we took to the National Mall with some new boating friends and WOW – seeing all of the monuments lit up at night is incredible! Seeing the American flag waving in the breeze all lit up, just made us feel so proud to call this country our home. While not without our flaws, it’s still the best system going and continuing to lead the way to freedom!
Evening on the National Mall
One of the nice benefits of coming back in the evening is that the crowds are gone and you can still walk around the Memorials! With clear night skies and perfect lighting, the Monuments are just glorious to see and explore. At they base of the Washington monument there were about 100 people broken out into about 8 different teams wearing different colored glow rings around their necks playing “night soccer”, which looked like a great excuse to be outside before heading off to their favorite watering holes for dinner and drinks.
We met Joe & Kay down in Portsmouth, VA earlier in our trip and told them we were headed to D.C. They had never been and said, neither have we, we’ll meet ya there! So a week later, here they were pulling into a slip and ready to take on D.C. with their e-bikes! We had such a great time with these two who are just so full of life and love for one another, even after 49 years together!
