After that I said goodbye to Micky (the dog, who was not happy that we weren't going on a walk) and drove to the Metro to go into town and see some of the Smithsonian museums! Oh DC, I could spend a month just visiting all of your museums, especially because so many are free. I'll let the photos speak for themselves - I really only made it through the Natural History Museum but it was a blast.
The day ended with meeting Katie at her office, driving to the Metro where I got out, Toph got in, and we all drove back to their apartment for Toph's Poppyseed Chicken (delicious!) and many more hours of chatting about any and everything (this is why I didn't update my blog for so long - I kept getting distracted talking and didn't go home until I was ready to fall asleep!)
Katie insisted that I needed a hat because it was cold. I told her that I really just don't do hats, I think I usually look ridiculous in them, but she insisted. Apparently this is a "cloche" - not normally my style but it did keep my head warm and I grew rather fond of it after a few days.
Cool clouds on the way into town
The Washington Monument in the daylight
The Museum of Natural History
Gnome making friends with the elephant
Whales! They had a huge exhibit about oceans, not only talking about cool marine life and adaptations but addressing pollution, overfishing, temperature changes, etc
The exhibit on human origins was really interesting, as such a huge institution they had the ability to actually own or borrow a lot of real skeletons and fossils where most museums just have casts or replicas like this one
The layout in the museum was sometimes a little confusing, it was easy to get turned around or to feel like you were missing parts of an exhibit, but the information itself was presented in some pretty neat, accessible ways, with a lot of interactive displays
The mammal exhibit was really cool! There were actually quite a few animals that I didn't realize existed, as well as some neat examples of ones I just think are fascinating. It was a little sad knowing that all of these animals were presumably killed so that I could ogle at them, but in terms of educational value it was a really rich experience seeing them as close to in person as I could get without going to a zoo or traveling to remote parts of the world
A pangolin!
A deer with fangs?! (it's a Chinese water deer)
Sugar gliders and flying foxes from Australia! Look at that huge glider up in the upper left corner o.O
Every time I look at a map and think that I'm not going to be particularly interested in an exhibit, I've learned that it's probably one of the ones I'm going to enjoy the most. This was a special exhibit of the winners of the Windland Smith Rice Nature's Best Photography Awards, and all of the photos were just incredible - I think my jaw was hanging open most of the time.
They had various categories for "youth photographer", "animal antics", "small world", "geological formations", "underwater", etc
The exhibit on DNA and genomes was particularly interactive, with lots of touchscreens, videos, and places where you could make choices and see various outcomes in terms of research or genetic testing to show circumstances where it is more or less useful in making decisions.
The Hope Diamond was the showcase of a huge exhibit on minerals and gemstones. Another that I didn't think I would particularly enjoy and then got swept up in.
The exhibit walks you through a lot of things that differentiate various gems and minerals, including color variability, crystalline structure and shape, and the external forces that can change appearance like pressure or deposit conditions
They had a whole mini recreation of the Copper Queen mine in Bisbee, AZ! (close to Tucson)
Insects aren't usually my thing, but the entrance to the butterfly habitat is free on Tuesdays, and I had a little time before my admittance so I went to go check out the bugs next door. Remember the caterpillars that eat your tomatoes? I declined picking up the African hissing cockroach or the millipede - after Burkina I really want nothing to do with roaches or anything with that many legs
Check out the colors on this one! There was also a "pink toed tarantula" which, as the name suggests, was a dark gray fuzzy spider with bright pink tips on each leg. I usually can hardly look at spiders but this one, if possible, was almost cute (but I didn't stick around long enough to take a photo :p)
Inside the butterfly habitat
The blue morphos were resolutely keeping their beautiful iridescence to themselves
They kept the giant moths in their own little enclosure
There's one!
Releasing the newly hatched butterflies
A whole exhibit on skeletons!
Occasionally it's hard to figure out what some of them are without reading the labels, and then you see the walrus
Look at how big this turtle is!
Exhibit on human bones and how they change and heal (or don't) under various circumstances and how that is useful in forensics
This is why you should try to get broken bones set properly - ouch!
I do wish I had gotten to visit Mali while I was in Burkina - I'd love to go someday
Look - there's Burkina tucked under Mali!
And because I absolutely must take a photo of anything that actually comes from Burkina
The exhibit had a whole area set up as a marketplace which was making me very nostalgic - pagnes, piles of tomatoes and onions and nyams, those stacking tin casserole dishes...
Giant ground sloths like the MHC megatherium :)
Oh hello!
Brief walk through the Air and Space Museum on my way to the metro
Outside the Air and Space Museum
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