July 24 -- American History Museum, part 2

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I mostly stay away from political stuff.  But I surely want to recognize the struggle and sacrifices made by those who went before me, who have made my life so much better than it might be.

Sorry for the blurry -- it was dark down in that hallway and none of my "whole buggy" shots were clear.

This one was a bit sharper.  Mothers surely DO need the vote, especially in poor neighborhoods.  Shame on those who are making it harder for citizens to vote!

Ok, this is amongst the strangest things I saw in Washington.  There was a whole exhibit on guano mining.

It just goes to show -- humans will make decorative work with absolutely any materials they have at hand.




I'd rather contemplate Elmo!

We also Olympic athlete Apollo Ohno's ice skates, and the ruby slippers, from the movie of The Wizard of Oz. 



Now here is a bunch more stuff I thought was really fun.  Big poster-sized reproductions of patent applications!  After I got home I wondered if the patent office sells posters.  I don't know if they do, but there are lots of commercial organizations that sell posters of these and many other patent applications.  (Looking this up online, I discovered that there's a poster for toilet paper rolls.........)

Ipod.

Yo-yo.

Tupperware.

Ziplock bag.

Fender guitar.  I'm sure this must be a particular Fender guitar, but I don't know which.

Lego block!

I failed to capture the explanatory info, but I believe these are samples of the kinds of cables that were originally laid across the Atlantic Ocean.  Talk about a HUGE technical achievement.............

I think it's really cool that it shows cross-sections, as well as hunks of cable..........

There was a section on fantasy fiction.  The backgrounds for the items in the exhibit were these fabulous images.  I believe they are greatly enlarged versions of engraved illustrations in the books.  I was pretty sure my attempts at recording this were going to fail, and I did not capture the info about the book displayed in front of this image.

But it came out much better than I'd hoped.  Sailing to the moon, on a cloudy night............

In addition to organized exhibits, there are random bunches of cool things here and there.  Love this huge vase (not sure if it's glass or ceramic)............

So much to see in each one of these museums.  Go and see.  Some time when it's not summer!



Walking out into the middle of the Mall, to get a look at the Capitol and the Washington Monument.

I am glad they are taking care of all this stuff, but wish they'd taken care of some of it in previous years!

Walking back north.  (The National Mall is behind us.)  That's the Museum of Natural History on the right, and the American History Museum is out of sight just to the left.

Google Maps helped us find a pizza restaurant.  It was a bit like Chipotle -- you pick a crust, and then walk along and tell them "some of this, some of that."  This is the first time I've ever had chickpeas on a pizza.  It was good.  We would eat there again, if we lived in DC.  Pretty sure this was &pizza.

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