Sharp's Travels

Today we were at the National Museum of Natural History. When you enter there is an eight-ton, 13ft tall African bush elephant. Hugh!
We went to the Butterfly Pavilion first. I knew it would be warm in there and I didn’t bring a jacket today and I was cold. To our surprise on Tuesdays the exhibit is free. There were hundreds of butterflies in the Pavilion. One landed on Gay’s shirt and stayed there quite a while. You had to be careful where you stepped, the butterflies were landing on the walkway in front of us. They were all so colorful.
We went back downstairs and picked up our tickets for the 3-D IMAX show on Dinosaurs and another 3-D show on Wild Ocean.
We had time to check out the Ocean Hall before our movies. Some of the many fascination exhibits were a full-scale model of a North Atlantic Shale and a 1,500 gallon aquarium featuring a live Indo-Pacific coral reef ecosystem.
We took in our two 40 minute movies and then went for lunch at the café.
We went through the Gems and Minerals. We saw the 45.5 carat Hope Diamond. WOW!
We checked out the Dinosaur Hall, the gigantic fossilized bone of all those creatures. There were lots of different ones on display.
We looked at all the mammals and watched a gentleman in the lab work at getting fossils out of stone.
We spent the whole day in the Museum of National History and by 3:30 pm we were ready to start our trip home.
Gay has uploaded pictures of the day. See album: Natural History Museum

Here we go again. We caught the 9:30am bus to the Metro. We took the train all the way to the U.S. Capitol today. We walked through the Cannon House Office building U.S. and by the Supreme Court building and then made our way to the U. S. Capitol Visitors Center. We were lucky and got tickets that were good for a tour of the Capitol Building leaving in just 1 minute. What timing!
Our guide took us into a theater to watch a short movie that describes how the U.S. Congress established a new form of government, tells the role Congress plays in the daily lives of Americans, and introduces us to the building that houses the U.S. Congress.
We were taken into the National Statuary Hall. Congress invited each state to contribute two statues of its most notable citizens. Today some of these statues are displayed in this room. Next it was into the Rotunda. It is the heart and center of the Capitol. It serves as no legislative function; it is a ceremonial space where state funerals have been held since the time of Abraham Lincoln.
We were shown the Senate Chambers and the House of Representatives Chamber. It was a neat tour.
We walked the underground tunnel from the Capitol over to the Library of Congress, but did not exit the building; we turned around and went back to the Visitors Center for lunch at their restaurant.
We checked out the Exhibition Hall and then headed outside and walked around the Capitol and got a few more snapshots.
We got pictures of Ulysses S. Grand Memorial, Peace Monument, and Garfield Statue.
We strolled on into the U.S. Botanic Gardens. It’s one of the oldest gardens in North America. They have more than 60,000 plants for exhibition, study, conservation, and exchange with other institutions. The collection includes economic plants, medicinal plants, orchids, carnivorous plants, cacti and ferns. Historic specimens include original 1842 founding collection. All the flowers were so pretty.
Another day in Washington D.C. and still much more to see!
Gay has uploaded pictures of the day. See album U.S. Capitol

Today is Sunday and the bus leaves the park every hour instead of every ½ hour. We got on the bus at 10am and took the Metro green line and then transferred to the blue line landing at the Smithsonian stop.
We headed right away to see if we could get tickets to go up in the Washington Monument. They were all sold out for the day. That was ok. Yesterday we did go up in the tower at the Old Post Office and got to oversee the city.
We walked up by the Washington Monument, got some pictures and moved on to the World War II Memorial. It honors the 16 million Americans who fought in the most devastating war in world history. Gold stars on the Freedom Wall stand for the 400,000 Americans who died. It is all laid out so well. There is a reflection pool that stretches from this memorial all the way down to the Lincoln Memorial.
We walked over to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. We had been there once before, years ago. There were people there today that were trying to make an imprint of their loved ones name on the wall. We walked past statues of men and women who served in Vietnam.
We continued on to the Lincoln Memorial. It was designed in the style of a classical Greek Temple. It overlooks the Washington Monument and the U.S. Capitol. Within this building is a 19 foot marble statue of Abraham Lincoln. He is flanked by inscriptions of his second inaugural address and the famous Gettysburg Address.
We strolled over to the Constitution Gardens. Here on the stones, they list all the signatures of the people who signed the Constitution.
We walked up by the White House and got to see the front, back entrance and lawn. The living quarters for the president and family are on the second and third floor. It was an impressive site.
We went down to the White House Visitors Center and watched a 30 minute video on the rooms inside the White House, the furnishings and china used for special events. There were lots of pictures of past and present presidents and families.
We tried to tour the Ford Theater where President Lincoln was shot but it was closed because they were having a show today. We did tour the house where Lincoln was taken and died, after he was shot, located across the street from the theater.
We were ready to quit touring for the day so headed back to the metro to head home.
Gay has uploaded pictures of the day. See album: DC mall

We were ready for another day of walking. We were at the bus stop by 9:15am and headed for the Metro Train. Our first stop today was Arlington National Cemetery
When we entered the cemetery, we headed for the Tomb of the Unknowns, established in 1921. A sentinel of the Third U.S. Infantry maintains vigil around the clock. The sentinel paces 21 steps alongside the tomb, pauses 21 seconds, then returns. The changing of the guard takes place every hour. We had 10 minutes to make a 20 minute walk to the top of the hill to catch the 11am changing of the guard. I was puffing real hard by the time we got there. We made the climb in 12 minutes and were there to see the ceremony. Following that, they had the placing on the wreath ceremony.
The cemetery covers 624 acres and shelters the remains of over 320,000 servicemen and women, Veterans from every war and major conflicts in United States history.
We walked by the graves of the astronauts, Edward Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and President John F. Kennedy and his eternal flame. It is a very solemn place.
We had to hop back aboard the Metro to go to the Pentagon Memorial.
The memorial captures that moment in time at 9:37am, when 184 lives were lost as flight 77 came crashing into the Pentagon. Each Memorial Unit is a cantilevered bench, l lighted pool of flowing water and a permanent tribute by name. Each memorial bench is made of stainless steel and inlaid with smooth granite. At night a light reflects off the water and onto the bench.
Paperbark Maple Trees are clustered around the Memorial Units. They will grow up to 30 ft. tall and provide a canopy of shake over the Memorial in years to come.
You can see the difference in the color of the side wall of the Pentagon where the repairs were made after the attack. This memorial was beautifully done.
We decided to get continue to explore and took the Metro to Pennsylvania Ave and check out the Old Post Office. It was built back in 1899. The architecture of this building is something else. They sure made buildings pretty back then. Today it houses shops and restaurants and daily entertainment.
It has a 315 ft. clock tower that you could go up in and get a great view of the city. We only waited in line about 10 minutes before getting our turn to go up. We checked the panoramic view and took the stairs down to the 9th floor so we could check out the big bells in the tower.
Once back on the ground floor we went over to the National Archives building. This is where you can see the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and the Bill of Rights. One needs lots of time there to check it all out.
It was 5:35pm when we got off the Metro and we had another 45 minutes before our bus came to take us back to the park. It was a long day. We needed to sit down and put our aching feet up!
Gay has uploaded pictures of the day. See album: Arlington Cemetery

Today we took the bus from our park and headed for the Metro Station to hop aboard the train that would take us to the National Zoo in Washington DC.
We managed the metro quite well. We had to switch from the green line train to the red line train and arrived at the zoo around 11:30am. This zoo is one of the world’s leading research zoos. They are working to save animals and build healthy populations in the wild.
The direction we headed for first was the giant panda habitat. We saw one outside playing with an orange crate and then inside we got an up close look at one sleeping on the rocks and another sitting down with his legs stretched out in front of him eating a carrot. When he was done he just fell asleep there. They are a neat looking animal.
We loved the gorilla habitat. They just had a new baby girl born there and the Mom was holding it and lugging it around. The little one even put her hand up on the window and all the little kids wanted to touch the window by her hand. It was so cute.
We saw the bear, cheetah, elephants, leopard, lions, meerkats, monkeys, sea lion, tiger, turtles, zebra and much, much more.
The zoo is on a hill and we walked downhill to all the exhibits and were lead to believe that there was an entrance at the bottom of the hill. WRONG! We had to climb back up the hill to get out. I had to stop a couple of times to rest. Thank goodness for those benches on the sides of the walkway.
Back out on the street we headed for the Metro train. It took us 1 hr and 10 minutes to return to the park.
There are 25 other Excel campers here in the park and we stopped to talk with them a bit before heading for our unit.
We call this a GREAT DAY!
Gay has uploaded pictures of the day. See album: National Zoo