DC 2016: Day 4 (Air and Space, American Indian, and National Geographic)

Our fourth day in DC called for another good chance of rain (that never materialized), so once again, I left my big camera at the hotel and only snapped a handful of photos with my phone.

I took this photo of General James McPherson, a Union general, because McPherson Square was our daily Metro stop!

We started the day at the National Air and Space Museum, which was one of the boys' favorite museums in 2010 and remained so today. We arrived well before opening, but the lines through security move slowly! The museum is amazing and massive and we could have spent all day there. Some of the boys' favorite exhibits were Time and Navigation, Explore the Universe, and The Wright Brothers.

Rockets

Apollo 11 Command Module

1903 Wright FLyer

Airplanes

After a couple of hours exploring America's air and space history, we decided it was time for lunch. Instead of fast food at Air and Space, we crossed the street to the National Museum of the American Indian's incredible Mitsitam Cafe. The cafe features Native American dishes from all over the Western Hemisphere. Gene ate a fry bread taco from Meso America, the boys ate turkey and sides from the Northern Woodlands, and I enjoyed soup and blue cornbread from South America. It was all delicious and a definite treat!

After lunch, we explored the museum a bit. The exhibit The Great Inka Road: Engineering an Empire was fascinating! We found a khipu, which Will and I had just read about in a novel. A khipu is a way to keep records using knotted cords.

We all enjoyed the museum, and then headed back to our hotel for a bit of downtime before our last stop of the day, the National Geographic Museum. This museum was only two blocks from our hotel and it was on my not-to-miss list!

There were three exhibitions on display at the museum:  Pristine Seas, Crocs, and Photo Ark. All three were excellent, but Photo Ark was absolutely phenomenal and just blew me away. National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore is halfway through a massive project to photograph more than 12,000 animals. Most of the animals are in captivity (many at zoos and aquariums, including the Houston Zoo), and Sartore's goal is to create portraits of each species before they disappear and to motivate people to want to do something to prevent extinction. The project is incredible and the photographs are inspiring. This is Henry with a ploughshare tortoise. There are only about 600 left in the world.

The Photo Ark is a stunning project, and if you are interested in seeing Joel Sartore's work in person, some of his photographs are on display in Houston as part of the FotoFest's Changing Circumstances exhibit at Spring Street Studios in the Washington Avenue Arts District. And, as luck would have it, Sartore and two other National Geographic photographers were in Houston to speak about their work the day after we returned from our trip. I read about it in the paper and Gene made sure to get home in time for me to attend the talk.

What an incredible experience, to see the Sartore's work and then to hear him and two others talk about their extraordinary photography projects. We saw so many incredible places and artifacts on our trip, but the National Geographic Museum was absolutely one of my favorite spots.