Washington, D.C.: June 2004

June 12-17, 2004

I took this trip with Laura and her boyfriend, Jeff. It was my graduation present for her and this is where she asked to go. We left on Saturday, June 12th, on the bus down to Boston, then got our plane to into National Airport in DC, which was only about an hour flight actually. Then we cabbed to the hotel and then went out to dinner at a nice Italian restaurant. The hotel was the Omni Shoreham, high end and nice, since I was traveling with Laura. (When I travel by myself, I'm able to settle for a lot less, but she is much more demanding.) So there was a nice pool that Laura & Jeff managed to swim in every night, and also the morning that we left because we didn't have to check out till noon.

On Sunday, we started out at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum. I like the spacesuit exhibit there. I had seen it when I went to DC in 1993 also, and I guess I'm just fascinated with the spacesuit technology. Without the spacesuit, the astronaut is a goner. It has to provide an entire environment within the suit, to survive in the vacuum of space. Actually, the Russians had conserved space in their capsules by having the cosmonaut not wear his pressure suit inside the capsule for re-entry. They had on display the gray - sort of just a jogging suit - that the cosmonaut wore for re-entry. Unfortunately, on one re-entry the capsule depressurized and the cosmonaut died. Anyway, the spacesuit technology grew out of the deep sea diving suits. So the display has some of those, including one with the giant metal helmet and little round window that opens up, as well as other (failed) prototypes like an all metal suit with joints. In my travels between various museums, I managed to see Alan Shepard's and John Glenn's original first mission Mercury suits, and somebody's Apollo suit covered with moon dirt.

Also at Air & Space, my favorite things were actual moon rocks, an exhibit on the Corona spy camera that took reconnaissance photos from space (the problem was presented as "Ok, we need a camera that can take detailed spy photos from 100 miles up, on a satellite going 17,000 mph, and then get the film back to us so we can develop it." This, in the time of late 1950's camera technology. Yeah, right. Well, they did manage to do it.) They had on display the case that contained the film which was then sent back to Earth. It was pretty big. There was also a new Wright Brothers exhibit where they built a life-size model of the glider they flew at Kitty Hawk, actually, a couple of them. I also liked the Gary Powers U2 exhibit they had in the jet airplane section. He was a pilot shot down over Russia in a spy plane in maybe 1961 or so. They had a rug that he embroidered during his approximately 18 months of imprisonment. People just have to do something with their time, have a purpose of some kind. So he made a rug. After, Air & Space, we came out and there was a merry-go-round there on the Mall and Laura wanted to ride it. The merry-go-round was always her favorite ride as a kid and she still likes it. She managed to talk Jeff into riding with her.

After lunch and the merry-go round, Laura & Jeff decided they wanted to see monuments. The weather was pretty good, not too hot, maybe in the 70s, so we went first to the then-new WWII Memorial. It opened up in May and it got a lot of publicity. One end has a sort of tower representing the Pacific and the other end has one representing Atlantic (war against Japan and war against Germany). In the middle is a big fountain. There's ducks swimming around in the fountain. There's a wall of gold stars representing 400,000 Americans who died in WWII. It was very crowded. And there are pillars representing all the States and territories that fought for the US in the war, which have the State's name and a big bronze wreath. It's pretty big, but actually I found it doesn't have the human aspect to it. The only time it does is when you get closer and check out the mementos that people have left there, like photos, letters, medals, etc. That gives it more of a personal feel. But I find the Vietnam Memorial more emotional because of all the names on it (see photo above). You start reading the actual names of people and realize each one was a real person with a life and friends and family and hopes and dreams, multiplied by the thousands of names you see going on and on. It is very moving in its simplicity and impact.

Then we went up to the Lincoln Memorial, and what I thought was cool about that was that when you stand at the bottom of the final flight of stairs, you can't actually see the statue, but as you climb the stairs, he starts to appear and kind of rise up in front of you. After that, we walked past the White House to get a look at that, then went back to the hotel and decided what to eat for dinner. Then it was time for the evening swim.

On Monday it was a busy day. We started by going to the Bureau of Engraving to try to get tickets for a tour, but the earliest we could get was 6:15, so we took those. That is where they print US money. Our tickets for the Holocaust Museum weren't until 1:00 so we went to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. I went right to the Hope Diamond. I first saw it in 1993, when it was viewable behind glass, hanging up on a wall and you viewed it sort of like looking through a window. This could be aggravating if it was crowded because you're just trying to see it over the heads of the people in front of you who won't move away. The new display rotates so no matter which side you get stuck on to view it, it rotates so you get to see it from four sides. They have a nice gem collection, with more colored diamonds, rubies, emeralds, so many gorgeous jewels. We girls like that kind of thing! Colored diamonds are very rare and so very expensive, and the rarest is the deep blue one like the Hope. Of course, the Hope also has its legendary "curse". Whether all that is true or not, the history of the diamond makes it interesting, in addition to its great beauty.

Then we checked out an IMAX movie called "To Fly", then had lunch and headed over to the Holocaust Museum. Laura said she liked this best of the trip. It is a really well done museum, and is always pretty crowded. Obvious what the museum is about, though it's not just the Holocaust but history leading up to Hitler's rise to power in Germany, history of anti-Semitism, how Hitler gained power, the genetic theories about the "Aryan" master race, and how the Final Solution was a step by step process over time, and what came after WWII for Jews, so very interesting if you've ever asked yourself how such a thing could happen.

After that, we came outside at about 4:30 and it was really hot. Laura & Jeffrey were too hot to do anymore (wussies!), so they went back to the hotel to swim. I went and got a snack and bought some books, then went back to the Bureau of Engraving, which is right next door to the Holocaust Museum, and took the money tour. I had taken this tour before in 1993, and I enjoy it because it's the only time in my life that I get to see millions and millions of dollars right before my eyes! So you get to see them printing money, and with all the security features and colors, it is a multi-layered process of printing upon printing, both sides. They were making 100s when I was there. I did a good deed by giving Laura & Jeff's tickets to a lady who had a tour at 6:45 but was trying to get in early. Regretted that shortly, because on the tour she just wouldn't shut up with asking questions. She was driving everybody crazy and I didn't want to reveal it was all my fault that she was even there.

On Tuesday, we decided to rest our legs some by taking the Arlington National Cemetery tour on the Tourmobile. We went to the Kennedy graves – President John Kennedy is buried there with Jackie and two of their babies, a stillborn girl and a boy who died shortly after birth. That is where the eternal flame is. There are always a lot of people there. A short distance away is Robert Kennedy's grave, which is very simple, just a white wooden cross. At Arlington there are also memorials to the Shuttle Challenger astronauts, the eight people who died in the failed 1980 mission to rescue the hostages from Iran, and the Shuttle Columbia astronauts. We also went to the Tomb of the Unknowns. It was blistering hot and we were at the Tomb right at noon and saw the changing of the guard. We were just baking, and we could not believe the guards weren't even sweating, despite being in their uniforms. It was truly like mind over matter, like they were so disciplined they could control their own body temperature! We saw a wreath presentation, and a guard played Taps, and the changing of the guard was a very slow and meticulous thing to watch. Every move very precise and choreographed. Pretty impressive, and very solemn. Arlington is actually a beautiful place. It is the resting place of US military from all past wars and conflicts.

After this, we went over to the International Spy Museum and had lunch, then took the 3:00 tour. I really enjoyed this museum; it's new and I hadn't been there before. I was a kid in the 60s and 70s and this was the era of the Cold War. Spying was essential. All this real life stuff brought us the entertainment of James Bond movies and the TV shows like "Mission Impossible" and even "Get Smart", a TV comedy about spying. But real spy stories and espionage is much more interesting than fiction. The museum is just chock full of all kinds of spy stuff and gadgets. They had a microdot camera, which can photograph documents and the image is as small as a period at the end of a sentence (in the movie that we had watched one night in the hotel, "Paycheck", this technology was used via images that were in the eye of Einstein on a stamp, so here we saw that it was actually real and not some made up movie thing). And other spy cameras in cigarette cases, buttons, lighters, you name it. And little kits which can be hidden on a person (we won't say where!) which might contain a cyanide pill, a map, a compass, whatever. Secret messages with invisible ink on paper, and on people. Hidden phones - yep, a shoe phone. Bugging technology. Enigma machine. I was pretty excited to see an Enigma machine, the German code machine during WWII. The Enigma machine led to the creation of some of the earliest computers when they were attempting to crack the codes in England (Bletchley Park). Exhibit on traitors was good, since I happened to be reading a book about traitors. They had recreated the office of the head of the Cheka, the precursor to the KGB, and this guy's office had the old secret back stairway behind the bookcase which led down to the bowels of a prison. People were nervous enough when they got called into this guy's office, but never thought they might actually disappear directly into a prison and never even come out of his office. Back in the days of communist Soviet Union, people used to disappear all the time. There was some nice information on the atomic project and the spies who sold that to the Soviets. It was really a historical yet fun museum.

On Wednesday, we went to the American History Museum. That took all day, there is just so much to see. Right at the entrance is the Pentagon flag that they hung from the roof after 9/11. The First Ladies' exhibit is nice, with all the gowns - I like to see historical clothing. The American Presidency exhibit was also very good, and Laura cited this as the second thing she liked best on the trip. It had information about the various roles performed by the president, assassinations and attempts (saw drums used for Kennedy and Lincoln funerals). Also Lincoln's top hat he was wearing at Ford Theatre, and a Lincoln life mask - he looked just like his paintings. I like life masks (and death masks) because you can see in 3D exactly what the real person looked like. Saw Clinton's sax and Chelsea's ballet shoes, and a dollhouse that some Presidential kid played with. There is Jefferson's portable desk that he wrote the Declaration of Independence on. A uniform of George Washington. So this exhibit was really good. American History museum has a 4 cylinder Enigma machine (the Spy Museum's had a 3 cylinder). I wanted to see the Deep Blue computer too, which is two black towers. This was the computer that beat Gary Kasparov at chess. They have an ENIAC computer, which has hundreds of vacuum tubes and takes up a whole room. Now you can have a computer on your desk, so it's funny to see these old ancient machines. The GB in your hand held iPod has more space. There's all kinds of samples of technological machines from adding machines, to typewriters and various computers which get smaller and smaller until you have your palm pilots and cell phones of today. They have the Woolworth lunch counter where the four black guys tried to get lunch down South and ignited all kinds of civil rights protest down there in the 50s just for sitting down at the counter. Hard to believe. We were at this museum from 10:00 to about 4:00. There is just so much there. They also have pop culture stuff like a (classic) Star Trek phaser and Mr. Rogers' sweater, Fonzie's leather jacket, Dorothy's ruby slippers. They have a (model) of the "Fat Boy" atomic bomb dropped on Japan. We also saw a 3D IMAX there about T-Rex which was very, very cool. The IMAX screen is gigantic, and then the 3D just made it seem like you're in the movie.

Thursday, Laura & Jeff swam some more before we checked out at noon and began our journey home.