National Museum of Natural History

The NMoNH (see title above) is huge with dozens of different areas, all featuring some aspect of nature. When you first enter, the elephant greets you, actually it doesn't so much greet you as stare you down. Animals of different lands are featured as you enter the different halls that run off this main foyer.

I won't bore you with all the areas there are to see but, I'll highlight a few. The African exhibit had some great dioramas such as this attack on a water buffalo. As you walk around you need to keep looking up to see a leopard about to pounce or a cobra about to strike. Lots of different countries were featured but I found the African pavilion the most visually entertaining.

Another interesting pavilion was the one on the oceans of the world. There were specimens from the greatest depths to flying fish and aquariums full of exotic fish. The crab in the front centre has an arm reach of over 6 feet; now thats a king crab.

This is a life size model of a Right whale, complete with barnacles and scrapes on its side from fights. See the previous picture for a better idea of its size.

They have 2 actual samples of giant Squid preserved in alcohol. Although larger ones have been found, this one's body was as long as I am and had over 45' of tentacle length. Based on sucker marks on whales, they say there are some at least 4 to 6 times larger than this one. I don't think I'll go swimming below about 500' deep in the ocean anymore.

This is a jaw replica of Megalodon, a great white shark that lived millions of years ago. He could have swallowed one the biggest great whites alive now and not had to bite him. Creatures were certainly larger back in prehistoric times.

Speaking of prehistoric times, the dinosaur pavilion was one of the busiest. I don't know why kids are so fascinated by them but this was a popular place. Dozens of dinosaur skeletons of every conceivable kind and size filled the room. The Smithsonian has been the premier museum for acquiring dinosaur finds and it shows. Some of the skeletons were uncovered over 150 years ago and new ones added just recently.

 This is one of the most complete mastodon skeletons ever found. There is a complete area on animals from the La Brea tarpits in California. Thousands of remains have been found with everything from sabretoothed tigers to giant wolves, and their prey.

They even had multiple displays of flying reptiles. To get an idea of the size, the ceiling tiles above the Pterodactyl are 2 feet wide each. Thats a wing span of nearly 16 to 20 feet.

One of their prize displays in the gems and minerals area is the Hope diamond. It is the largest blue diamond in the world and has been owned by kings and queens and has quite an interesting history. They have even larger diamonds on display, but the blue diamond is very rare which makes this one priceless.

Sorry this is out of focus but thought you might still like to see the worlds largest blue star sapphire as well as the worlds largest cats eye sapphire. Their gems collection went on and on with priceless tiaras to brooches and rings. There was a lot of rocks and stuff as well in the mineral areas. They also had over 2000 meteorites from one weighing over a ton to dust sized diamonds which they say was created by a supernova billions of years ago.

We spent the whole day here and skimmed a lot just to get through it all. This security guard from Easter Island was OK with us taking his picture before we left. Now, a days rest so our feet stop hurting and we'll check out something else. See you soon.

National Air and Space Museum

You must have know that with my airplane interests I would drag you through the Air and Space museum. It is amazing what they have here for aviations history. If you recall a blog I did awhile ago at Kitty Hawk about the Wright Brothers, I showed a replica of the original first flight aircraft. Well! Here is the actual first flying airplane. This plane was damaged after the first 4 flights and the repairs are still visible on it. Way cool!

Charles Lindberg was the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic and became very famous for doing it. This is the actual plane used, The Spirit of St. Louis. Now this is being in the presence of greatness. I mean, wow! I love this museum. Although there are many historic planes, I controlled myself (because I didn't want you to drift off) and took few pictures here. Actually, I walked around with my mouth open and forgot to take pictures, but, whatever. No pictures of Amelia Earhart's plane, no X-1 or X-15. What was I thinking? I'm going back.

 You have no idea how cool this picture is. Its a Japanese Zero from the second world war. Big deal you say. Until I saw this actual Zero (not a replica) I was under the belief that not a single one had survived and I was doomed to pictures for my information. I love this place!

This, if you don't remember from previous blogs, is an ME 262, the first jet used in combat by the Germans. Jets were such a leap in technology that nothing could catch this plane in combat so the allies, because they had air superiority near the end of the war, hung around the German airstrips and shot the ME 262 down as it tried to land. It only had about 30 minutes of fuel so that didn't take long. A game changer, but way too late in the war.

If you know what this is without being told, you're a better man that I. But thats whats so great about the Smithsonian. Theres stuff here you've never heard of. This is Howard Hughes record breaking plane. If you saw the movie Aviator starring Leonardo DiCaprio, this is the plane featured in it. Fastest speed, highest altitude, longest distance, this plane did it all! The man may have been insane, but he was a genius.

But, don't forget about the space part of the museum. This is the backup of the Hubble telescope which would have been launched if the original developed problems prior to launch. Isn't it huge? In the space section, there are modules which came back from the moon, from the first space flight, one of the Russian Soyuz capsules is here. There is more space history here, but, because I'm not really into space stuff, thats all I got. Hope you enjoyed the tour.

Washington DC

Well, its April 1st and the jokes on us. As we leave Virginia beach in ignorant bliss, we marvel at the entrance to the Hampton Roads Bridge tunnel which goes under Chesapeake Bay so the largest ships can pass over head. We had to stop and have our propane inspected before entering the tunnel. I guess they were afraid we may stop and barbecue half way through. It was supposed to be a short relaxed drive of only 4 hours but then again, we hadn't been to Washington before. We knew something was up when the traffic stopped 20 miles from Washington and never went over 20 MPH after that. With 30 miles to go and averaging 1 MPH, you do the math. Fortunately at times, we raced along at 15 or even 20 sometimes so it wasn't as long as we thought. The Washington ring road was 4 lanes wide, bumper to bumper as far as the eye could see, both forwards and back, and the sign said, CHANGE LANES. When you're in a motor home, towing a car, and put on your signal light to change lanes, guess what happens? Of course, everyone bunches up quickly because they don't want to be behind a motor home. So I learned not to signal. We did finally get to our campground and, I'm not kidding, I sat and had a scotch so I could do my hookups without my hands shaking. But, like all trials in life, thats now a dim memory; lets go exploring!

We took a day off to get our composure back and then decided to do a bus tour of Washington to get ourselves oriented and figure out what we wanted to see. This is Grammie at 6:30 AM waiting for the tour bus; no rest for the wicked I suppose.

After my baptism by fire driving into Washington, I had no intention of driving downtown so we ponied up a few bucks to save my sanity, Grammie's so good to me! When I planned our trip south last year and our approximate return, I had no idea that we were going to be in Washington during their 2 busiest weeks of the year: Easter long weekend (when everyone shakes off the winter cobwebs by going downtown for 3 days) and the next weekend which is their Cherry Blossom festival, their biggest event downtown of the year. Taking the bus tour is looking better and better.

First stop on the tour is the Capital Building. You get to stand in line for an hour for a 30 minute tour. I did the math. We went elsewhere, but it is a spectacular building. This is the place in "Mars Attacks" where the Martians evaporated all the Senators (just trying to put it in context).

We walked across the street to the Library of Congress. What a gorgeous building. Boy, give those architects unlimited funds and they can do some amazing things. Its all marble and granite and best of all, no hour long wait. Leave it to a Canadian to take the easy way out. Every building we entered required security screening and going through scanners. Its a sign of the times I guess. And guess what? Not one building or museum in Washington has a fee to enter! We probably blew 200 bucks last summer to get into the government venues in Ottawa.

The national mall extends from the Capital building to the Lincoln memorial. You'll see more of it later. Grammie is in front of the Capital building and in the background you can see the Washington monument and farther behind that is the Lincoln Memorial, which isn't visible. The point is, over the next couple days, we walked the whole distance twice, in the heat, what troopers we are!

A long time ago, look it up if you want the exact dates, the Japanese gave the US government thousands of Cherry trees as a gift. They bloom around the first of April for 2 weeks. The trees in the background are the trees which were donated. And are the reason for the godless hordes of Japanese crowding the capitol right now.

Just down the street from the godless hordes of cherry blossoms stands the Lincoln Memorial. Notice that there are no Japanese in the photo. I guess they didn't donate the Lincoln Memorial. Anyhow, I digress.

The memorial is a huge building which houses Lincoln's statue. On the 2 end walls are the Gettysburg Address and his second acceptance speech. It quite inspiring, and crowded as you can see. Its a very hot day and theres not much shade along the national mall.

Standing on the front of the Lincoln Memorial is the view towards the Washington Monument and the Capitol Building. Thats a long ways to walk twice don't you think? This is also the spot in Forrest Gump where he and Jennie run into the water, how romantic. What history there is here.

Bet you thought I forgot, huh? What tour of Washington would be complete without a shot of the White House. Perhaps I shouldn't use the word shot, considering the snipers sitting on the White House roof. Anyway, today is the day that easter eggs are hunted on the White House lawn. As a result, security has moved everyone back about a block away. They're afraid of egg nappers I guess. So, this is our first blog on Washington but, expect many more. Each museum takes a day to see with blog items galore such as the Fonze's jacket and Archie Bunkers chair and Julia Child's kitchen. We're here for 2 weeks so plan on being entertained. TTFN.

Virginia Beach

It was a lovely sunny day when we left Cape Hatteras to continue our journey home. In just as few short hours we arrived at our new home for the next week at Virginia Beach. The reason there hasn't been a new blog till now; this campground doesn't have internet access. Some are great, some pretty poor but this one doesn't even have a place to plug into an internet access, so this blog is late in coming, sorry.

Although the day we arrived was beautiful, by supper time, the clouds had rolled in and we had a huge downpour with thunder and sheets of wind drive rain. Sure glad we're not tenting! We needed to go into town the next day; this is what the road outside the campground looked like. I figured, as long as I can see the road stripes under water it can't be too deep. These roads are low to the ground and obviously flood often.

The reason we had to go in to town so badly? Grammie broke the handle off the kitchen taps so we had no water until I put in new ones. I think Grammie just wanted more modern taps, we certainly couldn't find anything like what was there.

Once the weather cleared and the new taps were in, we went exploring. This is Virginia beach, which is way wider than any beach we've seen. Yet, apparently, during the summer you can hardly make your way to the water because of number of people enjoying the beach. There are some benefits to coming out of season. There were surfers out there but they all had full body suits with even their heads and hands covered. One surfer we talked to said the water was around 50F and even with the body suit he was cold.

Near Virginia Beach is Norfolk Naval Station, the largest naval base in the world. Over 30,000 people live and work there as sailors, pilots, and marines. We decided to take a boat tour of the base because thats the only way you can even get close to the big ships. This is the George H.W. Bush, the newest nuclear powered aircraft carrier in the American fleet. It is still going through sea trials and isn't ready for duty yet.

The day we took our tour, their latest nuclear powered hunter/killer sub was commissioned. There was a big reception; you can still see the bunting on the sub. 2 days later it left for duty but they wouldn't tell us where.

The naval station was about 15 miles from the dock where the tour started and although it was sunny, the wind was very cold. We darned near froze taking the boat to and from the naval base. Now that we're warm again, it was a great boat tour.

Where the tour started, the navy has a museum and you can go on the battleship Wisconsin which was the largest battleship ever built. It fought in WWII, Korea, Viet Nam and the Gulf War. It has been decommissioned but can be reactivated if needed. It looks like the one I blogged about before so I won't bore you again. This is a display in the museum showing the size of the large guns on the battleship. I tried to get grammie to crawl through but no dice.

There was a lot to see in this area, especially history. Portsmouth is where the navy museum was and has historic areas of town dating back to the first settlers. The bay is one of the largest in the world and container ships are constantly coming and going. I managed to find another plane museum. This is an actual WW1 German Fokker (hey, I said FOKKER) which was the scourge of the skies when it came out. There were about 30 planes in this museum and all of them are flyable. I've never seen many of these and the fact that they are flown is amazing. Its a private collection; they wouldn't say who though. I'm guessing, that with these rare planes and the hangers, he probably has $100 million or more tied up. Best private collection of anything I've ever seen.

We did manage to find time to relax and have our happy hour once in a while. This was a lovely campground and we hate to leave, but further adventures await.

The Lost Colony

In 1587, 3 ships sailed from England with 110 people including 17 women and 9 children to form a new colony in the new world. Spain had already started settling the new world and the English were worried that they would be left out of the riches if they didn't have colonies there as well. Although they were heading for Virginia, they first stopped at Roanoke Island to resupply a military garrison there. The ships pilot decided that it was too late in the year to head north to Virginia so the colonists were left at Roanoke. The men of the garrison had run ins with the local natives and were missing, so the colonists were dropped off with not enough provisions in hostile territory and no one there to help them get started.

There is replica of one of the ships that actually sails as well as a town site and indian village at the location of the original colony. There people in costume tell the stories of the Lost Colony. Shortly after being dropped off at Roanoke, Virginia Dare was born, the first English child born in the new world. Her grandfather, the leader of the colony left a week later with the only ship to go back to England for provisions. His ship was pressed into service to fight the Spanish Armada and he never returned for 3 years.

When he returned, the colony was gone. All the buildings as well as all the people were missing. There was no sign of a fire, everything had been removed. The colonists were never found and to this day no one knows what happened to them. Even Virginia Dare had disappeared with them.

The original military site has been uncovered because an earthen fort had been built prior to the colonists arrival. It is known where the colony was, just not where everyone went. In the replica town, life as it may have been in the colony is depicted. These poor unfortunates don't know they are going missing. I wasn't sure whether I should tell them.

Most of the male colonists were armed to protect against the Spanish or native attacks. These are authentic weapons and I got to try my hand with a number of them. I was pretty good at the swashing but not so much at the buckling. More practice I guess.

Everything needed to build a colony was either brought from England or built on site. This lathe was built from raw lumber and was quite ingenious. Everything from wheel spokes to chair spindles could be turned out. I've heard of the Lost Colony over the years so its kind of cool to see where it all began. This all happened 20 years before Jamestown, considered the first permanent English colony in North America. A lot of history happened on this little strip of sand where we're staying.

The Wright Brothers

I have always been fascinated by flight and knowing that the spot where heavier than air flight started was only 30 miles away, We had to go see it. We've all heard the stories of how the Wright brothers made the first flight but to be at the actual spot where it happened is special. Every winter for years, they left Dayton Ohio and flew progressively more complex kites to understand lift and aerodynamics which there was little know about. They chose Kitty Hawk because of the constant winds and sand to land on which cushioned bad landings.

Kill Devil hill was over 120 feet high and was perfect for launching gliders into the wind. In the winter of 1902, they made over 1000 glider flights with their improved glider from the top of the hill to the open area below. Although it doesn't look like much, its a steep climb and carrying a 120 pound glider back up must have been tiring. They now had the air frame perfected, but needed a motor to push it.

Between 1902 and 1903, the Wright brothers built their own engine because there weren't any light enough and with enough horsepower to push the plane into the air. The cool thing about the Wright brothers is that they didn't just fly the first airplane. They invented the wind tunnel so they could test different wings. They discovered the three axis of flight, roll, pitch and yaw and developed ways to control them. They hand built the first engine that was light enough and powerful enough (12 Hp) to lift a plane. They hand built the first airplane propellers. All of these were needed for the plane to fly. They truly were mechanical genius'.

On Dec17th, 1903 they flew for the first time. The first flight was 12 seconds long and went 120 feet. They flew a bit farther on each following flight. On the last flight it went 852 feet in 52 seconds. In the centre left of the photo you can see a boulder which marks the starting point of each flight and a white marker shows where they landed. The first one is hidden behind a couple of people and the last one is far off to the right. Sure doesn't look very far does it? The 2 buildings were their workshops and living quarters for the winter.

I'm standing at the take off point for each of the flights. Its hard to believe all of our airplanes, jets and rockets started here. After the last flight, a gust of wind flipped the Wright Flyer over and badly damaged it and broke the engine. They were done for the year.

This monument was built at the top of Kill Devil hill 25 years after the first flight. By then, WW1 had seen squadrons of planes fighting over the battlefields and men had flow across the Atlantic. Things sure took off fast.

This life size artwork was built for the centennial of the first flight. It depicts the moment that the plane left the ground for the first time and is accurate to scale. Its made out of stainless steel and weighs 10,000 pounds. The Wright Flyer weighed 605 pounds.

Because this Flyer is so heavy I though I'd give Wilbur a hand stabilizing it as it takes off.

And whats a monumental event like this without adoring fans. Well, time to fly.