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.