You Can't Shop at the National Mall

On our second day in DC, Mel and I went to the National Mall to enjoy the Smithsonian Institute exhibits. One of the most glorious things about DC is that all museums are free to the public! The Smithsonian is huge, and it is entirely impossible to see it all in a day. In fact, I would say that if you went every day for a week, you still might not finish it. Mel wanted to see Julia Child's kitchen, but the American Heritage museum was under renovation. We realistically chose two museums - the National Air and Space Museum and the Hirschhorn Museum of Sculpture.

The Hirschhorn had a bunch of great stuff and some absolute rubbish (in my opinion). The Wolfgang Tilmens exhibit was wonderful, especially the layout. Snapshots mixed with poster-sized prints, abstract mixed with portraiture, photo journalism mixed with the bizarre. I loved it! The Air and Space museum was amazing, but it was also the place for parents to bring their kids. Take that at face value. Some particular pieces from the American Heritage museum were temporarily exhibited here. So, I saw Dizzy Gillespie's trumpet, Abraham Lincoln's hat and Dorothy's ruby slippers at the same time as I saw Chuck Yeager's Bell X1, John Glenn's spacesuit and Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Vega.

After the museums, we put some major mileage in and visited some of the monuments and memorials along the National Mall. Starting with the Washington Monument, we moved on to the World War II Memorial, then to the Korean War Memorial. After those, we visited the Lincoln Memorial, which was not as big as I anticipated, but huge nonetheless, and packed with tourists. After we broke free from that scene we wandered through the Vietnam Memorial and then made our way to the White House. For some reason, I felt compelled to see it with my own eyes, as if it were just an imaginary place I'd only heard of. Yep, it was there. After five minutes of being eagle-eyed by the po-po, we decided it looked more real on the movie Independence Day.