We're in Washington, DC!

We're at the Capital Yacht Club in downtown Washington, DC, close enough to walk to everything, and here's a couple of typical tourist pictures to prove it.

Plus the Smithsonian, which has so many spectacular places to visit on the Mall. Kathy's a lifetime contributing member, but we don't need any special treatment this trip. She previously got us into an excellent tour of the Uudvar-Hazy aircraft restoration part of the National Air and Space Museum. This time I want to go see the new aircraft displays at their Dulles facility, plus I just have to visit the Air and Space Museum on the Mall. It's one of my favorite places in the world. To stand there looking at the real, original Wright Flyer, the actual Spirit of St. Louis and the Mercury space capsules just gives me goose bumps.

On the way in, we passed this very interesting large building near Washington, DC. I don't know what it is.

On the Mall we visited the National Museum of Natural History. Quite spectacular and you can't do it justice in 2 hours. This, of course, is the Hope diamond... the most visited and most photographed thing in the museum.

They also had tons (literally) of cool rock crystals. This fluorite crystal formation is about 2 ft wide. It's from Cave in the Rock, Illinois, where we visited a fluorite museum in the area when we passed through there last October at the start of this trip.

I also liked the way they displayed the ancient oceans fossils (about 20 ft. long) hung in "swimming" positions against backdrops painted like the living animals.

But there's no need to clutter up the blog with lots of touristy pictures. We'll be here 3 days before heading back down the Potomac to the Chesapeake. We expect to meet friends from Glen Ellyn, IL