(no subject)

Saturday: Eeek, party! Nasty weather, yay fire!

Sunday: Lots of driving. Grrrh, why couldn't we have had weather like this yesterday? Get to camp, go back out in search of forgotten things.

Monday: Natural history museum. Lots of cool stuff about evolution, both physical and cultural. Also the WWII, Vietnam & Lincoln Memorials. I really can't describe how the memorials made me feel. We as Americans need to decide where we want this country to go and work to get it there.

Tuesday: Zoo. Lions and Tigers and (sloth-)Bears, oh my! I liked the fishing cats, and most of the invertebrate building, but the non-enclosed spiders freaked me out. The butterfly landing on my arm made up for the spiders. The Pandas were interesting but not very exciting. They have a ton of Golden Tamarin Monkeys.

Wednesday: Air and Space museum. It could have been so cool. Unfortunately it was mobbed, mostly with bored kids being dragged there as part of tour groups. The exhibits on the race to the moon were great, and I liked some of the WWII exhibits. After we gave up on that we went out to Arlington. The JFK and Bobby Kennedy sites were impressive and inspiring, and the Tomb of the Unknowns was moving. We stayed through one cycle of the changing of the Guard.

Thursday: Bead museum. Disappointing. It was tiny, and not very informative. A lot of the labels seemed to boil down to "this bead is made from glass and was made in Japan 600 years ago. Isn't it pretty." No real context or information on how various types of beads were used. Lunch at Kramer's was wonderful! Thanks Matt & Tracy for the recommendation. We then wandered through Embassy Row to the Textile museum, which was small but cool. The first floor was an exhibit on the woven bands used by the nomadic tribes of Central Asia as part of the structure of their yurts. The second floor was all about the color red. Interesting but not as impressive.

Friday: We had to move from our "kabin" to a tent, which used up most of the morning. After that we decided that we needed a break from museums, so we went to Six Flags. The rides that we were able to do were fun, but there were a bunch that were either broken or weren't yet open for the season.

Saturday: Freer Gallery. Art from Egypt, the Middle East, and Asia. Beautiful objects, and some interesting information on how styles and techniques evolved, but it was pretty weak on historical context for the objects. In fact, I had more or less the same objections that I had to the bead museum. We also checked out a couple of outdoor sculpture gardens. Some of the sculptures were pretty cool, others were just... odd.

See Tom's blog for his take on the week. He included links to lots of the stuff we saw, but I was too lazy.

(no subject)

Saturday: Eeek, party! Nasty weather, yay fire!

Sunday: Lots of driving. Grrrh, why couldn't we have had weather like this yesterday? Get to camp, go back out in search of forgotten things.

Monday: Natural history museum. Lots of cool stuff about evolution, both physical and cultural. Also the WWII, Vietnam & Lincoln Memorials. I really can't describe how the memorials made me feel. We as Americans need to decide where we want this country to go and work to get it there.

Tuesday: Zoo. Lions and Tigers and (sloth-)Bears, oh my! I liked the fishing cats, and most of the invertebrate building, but the non-enclosed spiders freaked me out. The butterfly landing on my arm made up for the spiders. The Pandas were interesting but not very exciting. They have a ton of Golden Tamarin Monkeys.

Wednesday: Air and Space museum. It could have been so cool. Unfortunately it was mobbed, mostly with bored kids being dragged there as part of tour groups. The exhibits on the race to the moon were great, and I liked some of the WWII exhibits. After we gave up on that we went out to Arlington. The JFK and Bobby Kennedy sites were impressive and inspiring, and the Tomb of the Unknowns was moving. We stayed through one cycle of the changing of the Guard.

Thursday: Bead museum. Disappointing. It was tiny, and not very informative. A lot of the labels seemed to boil down to "this bead is made from glass and was made in Japan 600 years ago. Isn't it pretty." No real context or information on how various types of beads were used. Lunch at Kramer's was wonderful! Thanks Matt & Tracy for the recommendation. We then wandered through Embassy Row to the Textile museum, which was small but cool. The first floor was an exhibit on the woven bands used by the nomadic tribes of Central Asia as part of the structure of their yurts. The second floor was all about the color red. Interesting but not as impressive.

Friday: We had to move from our "kabin" to a tent, which used up most of the morning. After that we decided that we needed a break from museums, so we went to Six Flags. The rides that we were able to do were fun, but there were a bunch that were either broken or weren't yet open for the season.

Saturday: Freer Gallery. Art from Egypt, the Middle East, and Asia. Beautiful objects, and some interesting information on how styles and techniques evolved, but it was pretty weak on historical context for the objects. In fact, I had more or less the same objections that I had to the bead museum. We also checked out a couple of outdoor sculpture gardens. Some of the sculptures were pretty cool, others were just... odd.

See Tom's blog for his take on the week. He included links to lots of the stuff we saw, but I was too lazy.