Sunday, May 12, 2013

Mary Ann's Visit: Part 4: The Washington Mall: Museums

Tom and MaryAnn @ the Apollo lander
During our friend Mary Ann's weekend visit this month we took her to Baltimore (which we've already posted about) and Washington, D.C. We spent hours walking the length of the Washington Mall, and fortunately, the temperatures were near 70 degrees F and cooperated!
  PARKING PREDICAMENT - We learned that the city of Washington, D.C. no longer offers free parking on weekends on street meters. Instead, there's a 2 hour time limit, and it's impossible to pay for 2 hours and walk to a museum, see it all and get back in that time.  SO, we had to find a lot to park in, which charged $12 (which is cheap for Washington, D.C.). So parking is only free on Sundays.
  SMITHSONIAN AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM - We stopped at the Air and Space Museum first - to look around and okay, well, to use the bathrooms. Walking the Washington Mall takes HOURS and we needed to make sure we could do it without going off-course. :P  We took some fun pictures near the Apollo lander, and in the lobby with the displays of the rockets. We thought it appropriate since we both work for the nation's space agency.

"That's a big rocket you have!" :)
Rob & Tom at the inside Rocket display













Tom and Rob at the Apollo- hey, who is that astronaut?






 SMITHSONIAN CASTLE- We didn't go inside the castle or any of the museums, because this was a "Monument tour" day. However, we stopped long enough for me to get a picture of the Smithsonian starburst symbol that was created out of flowers.


The smithsonian starburst symbol in flowers






Tom asks MaryAnn, "where next?" in front of a Hubble model













NEXT AND LAST BLOG ON MARY ANN'S ADVENTURES: The Monument Tour of Washington, D.C. (in a couple of days after some other fun stuff)

Who I am

I'm a simple guy who enjoys the simple things in life, especially our dogs. I volunteer for dog rescues, enjoy exercising, blogging, politics, helping friends and neighbors, participating in ghost investigations, coffee, weather, superheroes, comic books, mystery novels, traveling, 70s and 80s music, classic country music,writing books on ghosts and spirits, cooking simply and keeping in shape. You'll find tidbits of all of these things on this blog and more. EMAIL me at Rgutro@gmail.com - Rob

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