Art, History, Bricks and Brotherly Love

Beyond learning French, my goal while here is to play tourist as much as I can. Every weekend, I hope to go to a museum, see a site or something. Last weekend, I went to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. I’d swung by before, but it was swamped and I kind of sped through one floor.

This time, I arrived shortly after it opened and headed to the top floor, assuming I’d work my way down. Well, it’s just not possible to see it all in a couple hours, which is my threshold for crowds. I made it mostly comfortably until noon and, shortly thereafter, hit that “get outta Dodge right now” moment and quickly exited. At that point, I had almost – like 95 percent – finished the top floor. There is just so, so much to see.

Honestly, the Smithsonians are amazing places, and when you read about their research, outposts, etc., it becomes more and more amazing. Everyone should come to D.C. and see as many as possible. I would love to do a tour of one of their storage units, or whatever they call them, where the bulk of the stuff not on display at this museum or that museum is stored. It’s staggering.

My guess is the Natural History Museum is the kids’ favorite because of the giant elephant right inside the foyer and all of the skeletons. There were just so many school buses and kids, though not until about noon or so. I’ll head out there again to do another floor, but it will be at 10 a.m. sharp and I’ll maybe last until 1 p.m.

I had no idea the Hope Diamond was in the Smithsonian. How cool is that?

There are so many museums and cool things here that I hope I can make a dent in the list, but there are also things a short drive – or bus ride – away. Like Philadelphia, which is where I went last weekend. It’s under four hours by bus, and cost less than $45. The train is slightly more expensive, but the bus had more time options, so I went with that.

It was fantastic! I’ve been to Philly once before, but it was probably under the age of 15 and the only memories I have of visiting are two photos I (or maybe someone else) took. One’s Independence Hall and one is of the Liberty Bell. That was, I’m sure, in the days where you had a camera with a 24-exposure roll. This time around, I probably took 24 photos of the Liberty Bell itself.

I had short list of stuff to visit and hit all but one of those, but had no regrets. I did not eat a cheesesteak, but that was a result of caving on a milkshake around noon, which followed an amazing breakfast at some random place I walked past on the way to the Rocky statue. I just couldn’t eat anything else and did not want to stuff myself before getting on a bus – not a good idea. Instead, I bought some TastyCakes, which are also a taste of Philly.

Outside of “eat a cheesesteak,” my entire list was Rocky statue, Independence Hall, Liberty Bell and an art show. I also visited the Betsy Ross House, Elfreth Alley (oldest residential alley), the Reading Street market (where I got the milkshake) and the cemetery where Ben Franklin was buried. My hotel was right downtown and completely overrun with people at an educational convention. I mean, it was packed with people. I was a bit bummed that the lounge was closed on weekends because I’d counted on the free snacks but ah well.

All the liberty stuff was super cool, but oh man, The Art of the Brick at the Franklin Institute. Phenomenal. I’d searched a couple weeks ago what was going on in the city for the weekend and that’s what I came up with – an art exhibit comprised entirely of pieces made from Lego bricks.

Here’s the description, from https://theartofthebrickexpo.com/en/.

“The Art of the Brick immerses the visitor in the world of Nathan Sawaya: a cheerful and colorful world. The artist used more than a million bricks for this exhibition, creating over 70 works of art that can make adults and children smile and reflect. The collection includes a great variety of sculptures alongside re-imagined versions of some of the world’s most famous art masterpieces, such as Michelangelo’s David, Van Gogh’s Starry Night and Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.”

Since I couldn’t get there before 5 p.m., I didn’t go to the museum itself and only did the exhibit, which had evening hours as well. Honestly, it was the best $20 I’ve spent in some time. I cannot imagine how much time and Lego bricks were involved, but the Easter Island sculpture itself was made from over 75k pieces.

The vision Sawaya (a former attorney) had with Lego bricks is incredible. His exhibit encompassed several themed rooms, opening with replicas of famous works of art such as American Gothic and Starry Starry Night. Next, there were scaled-down versions of sculptures that included David, Venus de Milo, the Easter Island thing and a lot of other ones that looked vaguely familiar from humanities class. Another room featured animals, some of them very close to life size (tiger and cheetah), but others scaled down but still gigantic (whales and polar bears). There’s also a room with one installation: a 20-foot-long dinosaur skeleton that has over 80k pieces.

Each room wowed and I literally took pictures of every single work of art, sometimes more than one. I love American history, but that exhibit was the absolute highlight of the trip.

My grocery store is moving

My nearest real grocery store is about five blocks away, which is convenient. When I was here in November, I noticed the building across the street had the same name on it and wondered what was up and now that I am back, I have discovered it’s because the store is moving in April.

By “across the street,” I don’t mean a major highway, or even a minor highway. It’s barely a two-lane road; it’s really more like an alley. It can’t possibly be that different than it is now. Maybe they’re getting better rent – who knows?

They’ll have to move everything, I suppose, but honestly, they could form a human chain with the existing employees. The new place is that close to the existing one.

When I ran to the store last week for a couple things, I saw that they had all the frozen food on sale in preparation for the move. My guess is they can move the perishables but they can’t risk perishables. Since I’d come from class and only had a backpack, I couldn’t get much, but I returned on Wednesday with my carry-on to load up.

They’d had 12-packs of Coke for B2G2, but when I went that day, it looked like there’d been a fire sale. There wasn’t a single 12-pack left, and even the display had gone. However, I got some smaller ones and then hit the frozen foods, which had been 25 percent off. When I discovered they were now 50 percent off, I totally loaded up. Seriously, I may not have to buy frozen veggies before I leave. Not much variety, but broccoli is broccoli.

Knowing that they will be moving next week, I went again today, armed with my reuseable bags. I even redid the Tetris game that is my freezer so I could fit a few more bags of whatever in there.

But when I went in, there was barely anything in the frozen food section. And by “barely anything,” I mean four aisles of completely empty (but cooled and lit) displays. There was one small section and I could buy all the Cool Whip I wanted. They had that, two things of ice cream (never heard of the brand, but I’d bought some on the previous run so I was OK), two frozen pizza crusts and possibly some frozen bread. That was it.

The rest of the store also looked like it’d been ransacked, but ransacked in an orderly fashion. Everything was consolidated and neat, but there wasn’t much of it. I went to grab some brownie mix, 2 for $4, and didn’t immediately see Box. No. 2. There were literally only two of them left, and I had to reach all the way back to find the second one. I got it, though – just to make the trip worth my while.

All I really needed was grits and carrots, so even though I didn’t need all the bags I’d brought, it worked. I’d spent $50 before (on $90 worth of food) so today was gravy. Except they were out of gravy.

Fortunately, since I am so stocked, I won’t need to go to the new store until it’s been broken in. Until then, I’ll be eating down my freezer.

Although this seems like a boring subject to discuss, it’s taken my mind off French for a hot minute. Holy cow, learning a language is hard. This isn’t “let’s take a language class once a week at the rec center” or even a high-school type class. This is all day, every day, and then I come home and basically redo the class, do an increasingly large amount of homework, review some YouTube videos of French lessons and watch a TV show in French. I’ve had dream about French (not in French) since week one, and they are getting more intense.

This is not my wheelhouse but I am trying. Three of the four people in my class are on about the same level, though I think we all have different strengths and weaknesses in learning. I was talking to one of them and she said maybe when we rotate (in about 3-4 weeks), we will wind up in the “dumb” class. Trust me, there’s no offense taken – we are both struggling. But she freely acknowledged that she doesn’t spend a whole lot of time on the homework and I do. She’s successfully gone through another language course at the school and this is my first one. (And only, God willing.) I keep hoping that it will click but so far there’s been no such luck.

My Arabic’s never been better

I’ve entered Week Three of French language training, and my Arabic’s never been better. It’s been about 15 years since I returned from Peace Corps (EGAD!), and, quite honestly, I struggled mightily with the languages.

Languages don’t come naturally to me. There’s zero aptitude there, and this six months where my job is to learn French … well, let’s just say I’m terrified. In the end it will be okay, I know, but getting to the end of August may kill me.

Right now, though, responses are popping into my head for all of the questions. Unfortunately, they’re in Moroccan Arabic instead of French. I guess that’s because I heard French all throughout Peace Corps, and when someone there would say, “Bonjour!” I would respond with “Sbah Lehir!” “Au revior” sounds strange; signing off is “bslama.”

In class, when questions come to me, I can’t string together a response in French, but the Darija springs to mind, fully formed. Where that was 15 years ago, I don’t know. (“Manarf” in Darija. I can’t think how to say it in French. Je something.)

It’s going to be a long, long slog. And with the time change, it’s even sloggier. My plan is to walk to work on a daily basis and now it’s dark and flipping cold early. It’ll warm up eventually, but I’m bringing hot chocolate with me so I can warm up when I get there. It’s only a mile, but a mile in 34 degree-and-windy weather is brutal.

Today, I had a meeting right after class and it finished up 15 minutes before the shuttle came to take people home. It was nice, albeit windy, so I opted to walk. Because I was walking, I decided to hit the grocery store to buy some tea. I was already laden with my books and bag, so I wasn’t shopping, but when I got here, I bought enough stuff to last months, so I am only cherry-picking food right now. Yesterday it was carrots; today it was tea.

As it turned out, the tea was on sale, but I had to root through to find sweet tea. Since I was wearing a fairly puffy coat (love LL Bean!) and wrangling two things hanging from my shoulders, getting the money out was a feat. It was $2.53 and the cashier asked if I wanted to round up. Now, I’ve heard this isn’t the thing to do because the grocery store can give your money to whatever charity it sees fit and not necessarily the one they’re promoting, but I didn’t care. I was getting hot in the store in my heavy jacket, I was lugging two bags and a gallon of tea and I still had five blocks to go once I paid. SI handed over my $3 and said, out loud, that he could round it up and I trusted that karma would come my way.

And I got out of there. Since I was here two months ago, they moved the entrance to the grocery store so it’s an extra block away, and I was just ready to get home and out of the wind, especially because I hadn’t juggled my load to put my hat back on. Instead, I held on as best I could and headed the last five blocks to my apartment.

Three blocks in, I was shifting stuff around and trying to get a grip when I glanced down. Right at my feet was a folded-up dollar bill. It took a whole three blocks for the good karma to come back around.

Learning the language

Home leave was fun while it lasted.

Well, not really, but it is over. I accomplished very little but had a little bit of fun. Saw some extended family – trips to S.C. and La., plus visited St. Augustine and saw Scotty Emerick. Those were the highlights.

Lowlights were in abundance, but there’s no point in dwelling on them. Batgirl was appreciative of a couple extra hands for the tummy rubs, so I’ll cling to that. But home leave’s over now, and I’m parked in D.C. for the time being.

 It’s only the first week, so I’m still settling in. One more Target run and I think I’ll be good – I forgot a couple things on the first pass-through. So far, I’ve been to Harris Teeter, Target, Amazon Fresh and Trader Joe’s, plus put in an Amazon order. It’s amazing the amount of crap you need to start off, only most of my crap is food. I did buy a silicone trivet/microwave shield and some reuseable silicone baggies, but everything else has been food. I’m starting from zero and should be here several months, so there were lots of staples to acquire.

 Since I’ll be going to campus daily and there’s no much around, the plan is to bag lunch. I’m essentially a middle-school student when it comes to bringing lunches. So far, I’ve brought peanut butter crackers. Since I’m coming from the land where caramel M&Ms and WintOgreen Lifesavers have flowed freely, I’m trying to cut back on sweets. There’s been early success on the ability to do that, but unfortunately, the scale added a pound rather than deducted one.

My temporary apartment is fine. There was a list and the orders were to pick four and they’d get me in one. I remember my first pick and this is not it, but it’s next door and they’re all the same anyway. The only difference between this one and that one is that this one has an outdoor pool instead of an indoor one and the other one doesn’t allow dogs. I swear in some of the paperwork, it sounded like this one didn’t, either, but the barky little dog down the hall begs to differ.

 But the digs have everything you need: a washer and dryer, biweekly service, a gym and a concierge for when the Amazon packages arrive and you’re out of town. One thing it doesn’t have is a pull-out sofa, which surprised me but I’ll deal with it.

I’m almost done moving in, which basically means I finally figured out where all but one of the light switches go to. There’s a lamp I thought was broken, but after much experimentation I discovered the control diagonally across the room, no where near it. I’m not sure I’ll ever use that lamp, but it’s good to know where the power is.

Probably the smartest thing I’ve done here is get an Arlington library card. Now, I love me my Leroy Collins Library, but this Arlington library – woo-hoo. It’s fantastic and barely two blocks away.

The job itself is going to be brutal. I’m learning a language, which sounds super cool but it’s not my strength. However, I really, really want to be successful and hope that I can land on some method of study that works for me. I’m just not one of those people; my strengths lie elsewhere.

There’s a test to evaluate language aptitude, and I took it this week. Although the official results aren’t in yet, I can pretty much guarantee I know how it ends: I suck. There were five sections and I only felt comfortable with one of them. It was where you were given an abbreviation of sorts for a word – think messaging. You were supposed to define the word. So if it was SCRBL, you might select “mixed up.” That section had a bunch of questions and a short amount of time; I got the impression no one was expected to finish. I didn’t, but I got pretty far despite leaving some blank.

The test isn’t graded for credit; it’s a measuring tool. We’d been told guesses didn’t count against us, but since this was to measure something, I felt it was more honest to leave blanks. And boy, did I. The last section was basically a short-term memory test and I only answered about three out of 20-25. Two had been used as examples in the instructions and one was the word for “wolf.”

So now begins a slog in which I have committed to doing something completely out of my wheelhouse. I am pretty freaked out over it. Lots of people take language and the classes are small. Mine has four people. The teacher asked us what our goal was and what we considered our biggest fear. The others said something like “mastering the language/speaking well” and “messing up” but when it was my turn, I told them my goal is to manage my expectations and my biggest fear is holding up the class. It may be a very long spring/summer.

Some of it’s magic and some of it’s tragic

I’m halfway through home leave; French looms in a month. It’s been … well, I know to manage my expectations. This home leave has revolved around the care and feeding of Zippy, who really needs to consider an assisted living facility. I’d planned on visiting some with her and maybe lining stuff up, but she wants to stay in her own house, which is understandable. But since I will be departing in less than a month, she really needs someone to look after her. We had someone visit but she’s opposed to that. Her solution is for me to quit my job.

Since I’ve been here, I’ve been to one funeral and two more people from my youth have died. In addition, two more families have called in hospice for people. Both my sister and her husband have upcoming medical procedures. It’s not been fun, but it’s centering around Zippy.

Most of my home leave has revolved around downsizing, cleaning, chauffeuring, and entertaining her, but I’ve squeezed in some stuff for myself. One thing that wasn’t supposed to be for me was a trip to visit my aunt in South Carolina. Zippy was supposed to go to that but wound up in the hospital earlier that week and didn’t feel up to the trip, so I went solo. Had a blast; we did two garden club events and had good food and good conversation. Lots of new dog hair, too, with Clyde, the teenage Golden.

There’s another upcoming family trip; Zippy and I – as well as Rally and The Bat – are headed to Ruston to meet up with her brother and family (and dogs), who will be having a short graveside service in memory of my aunt, who died in the fall.

Batgirl is having a wonderful time having me here. She doesn’t have to use her legs because I cuddle her and carry here everywhere. She’s such a sweet, spoiled little monster. Also demanding, but that’s what divas do. She’s still my little baby, even though she’s 13 years old.

I’m coming off a lovely weekend in St. Augustine, where I have only been once before, which would have been likely 30+ years ago. Leanne, the expert, booked us a lovely lunch at the Columbia and, much later, we had upstairs balcony seating at Meehan’s Irish Pub because I wanted Fish and Chips. We stayed across the bridge for the evening so we could visit the lighthouse easily in the morning, so we finished off Saturday night with ice cream from Cone Heads. Lovely weekend with unanticipated beautiful weather. We’d been prepared for rain on Sunday morning, but it was gorgeous both days.

Last week, I had a short stay over at Leila’s, which turned out to be one of those good/bad visits. Her grandfather wound up in the hospital and her car was on the blink, so I jumped in to help with transportation and some little household repairs. I had a lovely visit with Blue and finally got some time to visit Leila after she left her grandfather in the hands of other family members.

Leila had to come into Tally the day after I left for something and we (and Blue) met again at Harry’s, where I used a gift certificate from a friend. I’d never gone before and man, it was fantastic. I brought Zippy home some shrimp, but it cannot have been better than the grouper I had.

 Late that evening, Leila called me and asked if I knew who was going to be in Tallahassee the next day, which was Thursday. I had no idea, but it was the day I was taking the car for repairs first thing and then delivering Zippy to the dentist at 1:45, so I didn’t really have any free time. (Not counting sitting around and waiting on Honda to fix the mirror.)

And enter the magic: Leila had just discovered that there was to be a press conference to announce the renaming of A1A Jimmy Buffett Highway and Florida’s new JB specialty license plate. He was by far her favorite entertainer, so this was huge for her. However, they (“they” being either the folks at Margaritaville or the State of Florida, I’m not sure) also brought in a shirttail member of the Coral Reefer band to play a few JB tunes following the press conference. And that member happened to be one of my favorite songwriters, Scotty Emerick.

Totally love the guy’s music and seeing him perform has been a bucket list item forever. Living overseas for a couple years at a stretch makes this difficult and a couple years ago I attempted to see him at Key West Songwriters but fell short. Since at that show he performed with Dean Dillon, I couldn’t score tickets but I did *hear* him play because someone kindly directed me to the back door and I hung out there and eavesdropped.

And last week, an opportunity to see him fell into my lap. Fortunately, the car got fixed and Zippy got a ride to the dentist so I did get to see him on the Capitol steps. The gig wasn’t for his stuff but for 4-5 Songs You Know By Heart, but it hit the spot. I told Leila I’ve now seen him play and heard him perform his songs, so taking those together it’ll have to scratch the bucket list item because I don’t see it happening again. He wasn’t at Songwriters last year and starting this year I’m out for four years straight, so this may be it.

But it was a lovely bit of magic in what’s been a fairly tragic home leave.

A Christmas miracle

Back in Florida for Christmas for the first time in I can’t remember. It’s definitely warmer than in our nation’s capital, but it’s still chilly, especially in the mornings. My motivation for 10k steps daily has waned a bit because mornings are 38 degrees. Since I do not have a lovely gym right across from me and am reduced to pounding pavement, there’s not a lot to encourage me to wake up and go. Especially since A. it doesn’t lead to weight loss and B. there’s nothing else to do all day anyway, so I can walk around the neighborhood later.

This chapter of No Place Like Home should be two months long; I’m not due back for language training until the end of February. I may have scheduled something earlier, but I honestly can’t tell from the schedule. There’s a two-hour class I have to do in a couple weeks, but beyond that, there’s nothing.

It’s all about Zippy. Yard work and massive home repairs are on the calendar as soon as 2024 hits and there’s also the matter of getting a new side view mirror because Zippy toasted the current one. It’s held up by a lot of tape and a prayer. This is no vacation.

I have a ton of leave to burn, though, and penciling it out, I will still have a bunch left over when it’s all said and done. It’s a little bit crazy, but it’s a nice crazy to have. Right now, I have three pots of leave and they all runneth over.

Anyway, Christmas at home is fine; Batgirl is happy to have another human to rub her tummy. We don’t do anything for the holiday, but I did get to a Christmas Eve service, which was nice. What’s not wonderful is having three people in the house and only two bathrooms; I’m having to share a tiny bathroom and I’m crammed into the third bedroom, which has little spare room. That’s bad because I have all my Sandbox furnishings – 400 pounds – with me. Much of it is in the garage and I’ve gifted Wendy some stuff I brought, but the rest has to hang somewhere. It’s household stuff, so I’m not using it, but it has to stay somewhere until it gets shipped to my next post, which won’t be until September.

It's crowded, so when I had the opportunity to cat sit for almost a week and have a whole bathroom – as well as Netflix and the whole house – to myself, I jumped. YAY! I spent Monday-Friday elsewhere, catching up on some movies, including the wonderful Christmas film “Love Actually.”

While there, I did try to walk a little. There’s a circle and I’d do that every morning, popping in a “Stuff You Should Know” podcast and throwing on headphones. Somehow, though, upon return, I can’t find the headphones anymore. It’s no great loss; they’re the wired ones that come with the phone, and the left one stopped working about three weeks ago. It’s a mysterious loss, though. It’s not here; it’s not there, but it has to be somewhere.

And now that I am back at No Place Like Home, I don’t have any headphones. Somewhere in the 400 pounds of stuff, there’s a wireless set but I have no clue where and don’t feel like digging. That wireless set is the third set of those I’ve bought. A cheap pair I got in Vilnius blew out and I left those on the free table. The first set was with me in Minsk. I remember one really cold morning (there were a lot of them) I went to the big grocery store and, in that no-man’s land between the first sliding door and the second one, the left one fell out!

Man, that was upsetting. I hunted and hunted for that thing; I mean, it couldn’t have gone far; it’s not like I didn’t notice it had fallen out. I got on my hands and knees and looked underneath ATM and vending machines – places no human eye (or hands) should ever encounter. But no dice.

Eventually, I bought a replacement off eBay but quickly discovered (quickly after the agonizingly slow delivery, anyway) it wasn’t exactly the same and was therefore not compatible. (Say mine was model 831 and the new one was 832.) Bummer. I went with the wired forever and then caved and bought the cheap ones in Vilnius. Pair No. 3, the one in a box somewhere, is corded together so I’m not worried about losing those, but I have to find them first.

While unpacking, I rooted through my backpack and felt something hard in this little bungie thingie on the strap. It’s for your MP3 player or something; I never use it. (My backpack dates to MP3 players.) I dug through the mesh to identify the object and it was my long-lost headphones! Truly a Christmas miracle.

Weirdly, I found the mismatched set in my 400 pounds of crap and reunited Lefty with Righty and tossed them in the charter together. A blue light blinked suspiciously, but Lefty charged up like a trouper.

That thing fell out of my ear well over two years ago and I hunted forever for it. The whole time, it was lodged in mesh maybe 8 inches from my ear

Discovering D.C.

Since I am in Washington temporarily, I’m trying to explore as much as possible. Still being acclimated to Sandbox winters, it’s a bit chilly for me but my goal is to do one touristy thing a weekend. Various Smithsonians are always good bets. There are so many of them!

The first weekend I was here, I went to the Air and Space Museum on the mall, which is being renovated. I’d been there before but love to wander. Another weekend, I went to the Native American one. After taking a week off of museums for Thanksgiving, I finally got to the larger Air and Space Museum branch, which is the Udvar-Hazy one near the airport. It was my third time trying to get there this stay and it was absolutely worth the wait.

It happened to be the 20^th anniversary of the museum, so it was packed. I arrived right before it opened and the line was at least a block long, but once it opened everyone went through quickly.

Holy cow, what an incredible place. It’s in a series of hangars and whoever did the planning must be some kind of Tetris wonder. There were scads of (mostly) winged aircraft, some of which were absolutely huge and some of which were nowhere near as large. Someone, way back when, must have done some blueprint or something and figured that you could fit this giant winged aircraft that took up a huge footprint and still have room to put other just-as-impressive (but smaller) aircraft, quite literally, in the wings. For example, there was an Air France Concord – which is one long beast – with multiple smaller aircraft strategically placed underneath. Other plans, gliders and balloon buckets hanging from the ceiling.

A lot of the aircraft were experimental and my big takeaway from that was that there are some really brave (or possibly stupid) in the world. Some of the prototype helicopters, in particular, reminded me of the thing that Barney Rubble tried to design on the very first Flinstones episode. The home-built planes and gliders were equally impressive.

The bombers and other wartime planes were amazing. One looked like a boat, and some absolutely looked like spy planes. Mostly because they were, like the Lockheed Blackbird, the epitome of “stealth.” My favorite bomber, though, as the “Flak-Bait,” which wasn’t on display. Instead, the Smithsonian folks had opened its workshop, so to speak, to visitors.

In the workshop, there are people cleaning, repairing and restoring potential exhibits. I’d caught a glimpse of the fuselage from the upstairs viewing room (it’s nor normally open to visitors, but the anniversary was special), and when I went through that hangar, stopped to look. There was an older gentleman standing on the other side of the “us and them” rope designating the walking path. I started talking to him about the plane and, since he seemed to know a lot about it, asked what his connection to it was. Turned out, his dad had been the pilot.

This is why it’s important to talk to strangers. They have amazing stories. The guy didn’t work at the Smithsonian, but had come to visit on the anniversary, and when the employees realized who he was, they asked him to step on the working side of the rope and chat with guests, and I just got lucky. He had some great stories about the bomber (a B26). I asked him how long his dad had flown it, and he said most tours were 25 missions long, but his dad flew 75. That’s incredible.

Since he said his dad, who’d been 22 when he served, didn’t talk much about the war, I asked when he figured out the enormity of what his dad had done. He said he’d had the opportunity to pilot a small plane in and out of the base where his dad had been stationed. (It’s no longer a base and is privately owned.) He said when he was coming in for a landing, he realized he was seeing the same countryside his father had seen 75 times.

I’m so glad I got to chat with him.

I had hoped to find the control panel that Laurie and her team signed after decommissioning the shuttle Discovery, but that is not on display. An employee explained that there’s another hangar for storage and only a small percentage of their stuff is on display.

That was a bummer, but seeing the Discovery made up for it. Holy cow, it is pretty cool to stand next to something that’s flown over 150 million miles. Well, I suppose it would bore Laurie, but it geeked me out. It is impossible, though, to get the whole thing in one photo frame.

I would up spending a couple more hours there than I figured, but it wasn’t enough time. I’d gone with someone and think that she got bored, so I caved and came back a little earlier than I had planned, but, even then, it was a good 3-4 hours. There’s just that much to see, and it’s totally worth it.

Now I am down to two more weekends in DC, although one of those is just a Saturday. I am thinking the American History museum will be next, although I checked the website and Seinfeld’s Puffy Shirt is not on display. Ford’s Theater is a backup, and so is seeing the White House Christmas tree.

If I go, I am going to ask how they store the things that aren’t on display. It sounds like there’s more in storage than on display. This makes me curious as to if there’s a giant storage unit somewhere with stuff all crammed in it, or if it’s something akin to the where the Ark of the Covenant was housed at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.