National History Museum

Day 12, July 31, 2009

Another day in beautiful Washington DC. I woke up this morning thinking, maybe today is the day I see the President! Everyone was still a little worried about the truck but the man with the fuzzy face said we need to just enjoy ourselves and keep a stiff upper lip. I wasn't sure how keeping your face all distorted could help make the truck feel better, but I tried.

Now that we were Metrorail experts, the ride into the Mall was simple and uneventful. We went back to the Air and Space museum to see the last room that we'd missed yesterday. And it was a good thing we did! We saw this great bear named Magellan that traveled all over the world even more than I have! He's gotten to spend time with presidents, I don't see why I can't! On the other hand, now that he's retired, they keep him in that silly seat behind glass all the time. I'd want to be out and hugged! In the same room was a real plane that Daddy and I flew and they even had a contest with paper airplanes where Daddy came in second!!! Out of over 30 kids tossing planes through a hoop. My daddy is really awesome!

While we were waiting for the contest to start, the old lady got a nice picture of Auntie again. That's two!

Soon, it was off across the big mall to the National Museum of Natural History. What a huge place! We took hundreds of pictures of me on all kinds of wonderful things. It was hard to pick which pictures to include, so I'll just pick the ones where I'm cute... Oh, that doesn't make it any easier, I'm cute in all of them! Right at the beginning, I almost ran right back out of there and all the way back to the camper. A giant dinosaur picked me up in it's teeth and was going to eat me. I was soooo scared! But then I got to play with these half naked cavemen type guys and they made me laugh so much I forgot to be scared.

I really liked the monkey skeletons so I could see what my insides look like. The old lady and the man with the funny faced looked at me weird and said, "Well, that's not exactly what YOUR insides look like..." I don't know why.... I'm a monkey, they are monkeys....

Daddy's favorite room was the insect room. He got to hold a Madagascar hissing cockroach. Ewwwwwwww!!!!!! There were also all kinds of spiders and really pretty butterflies.

The old lady's favorite room was the rock and gem room. They had all kinds of beautiful glittering things. They even had a whole display of raw gold. It was so pretty and shiny! But she laid me on some amath, amith, some really pretty purple stuff and it was really pointy in my back! I didn't like that at all!

We exited soon after that and headed next door to the American History Museum. There was all kinds of interesting displays of how our different mode's of transportation started. There was nothing about Minkeys in backpacks so they missed one. I stopped and sat with a cute little girl in front of an old trolly car but she was very cold and quiet and wouldn't say anything. The old lady tried chatting up to a lady waiting for the train but got the same reaction. Those people weren't very friendly.

During the walk around the museum, the man with the fuzzy face got a call from Dodge that the truck was fixed! And it didn't cost nearly as much as they first said. It still costed a lot, so I guess I'm not getting any bananas for awhile.

After the phone call, the mood was a little lighter until later in the day when everyone started to get really tired and really, really hungry. Did you know there are NO restaurants in the "Mall" area where all the monuments and museums are? The old lady got on the phone with our hero, Auntie Jeanie who tried to guide us to some restaurants. We thought the ones she named were too far away, but we ended up walking almost that far anyway! On the way, we saw a very old stage. I didn't see any plaque saying what it was, but it looked like an old stage where presidents would give speeches and such until all the roads were built up around it. We also passed THE WHITE HOUSE!! I tried to climb through the fence and run up and see the president, but Daddy pointed out the man with the gun on the roof and said I'd be blown into little fluff pieces if I tried!

We ended up at a really good sandwich shop at 1700 Pennsylvania Avenue called Cosi's. The old lady liked it because it was healthy, Daddy liked it because it had pizza, the man with the fuzzy face and Auntie just liked it because they didn't have to walk any more. As we approached the block where Cosi's was, there were lots of police and secret service people running around and they had the street blocked off. When we got all they way to where the crowd had gathered, the man with the fuzzy face found out we had just missed the president's motorcade! He's going to be so disappointed he missed me by 5 minutes!

While we were eating, some important looking gentlemen in business suits came in to eat. They had microphones behind their ears and guns and badges on their belts. Daddy said they were secret service. They didn't seem very secret to me.

After we rested and recovered from all the walking, we headed out to walk some more and find the metro station back home. We arrived at our little campground around 9:00 pm, very tired and ready for bed. Ta for now....