It was another rainy —or rather drizzly—day in our nation's capitol again. No matter; we were planning to be inside all day.

But first it was the usual morning routine including the buffet downstairs. There are about four people here that sound like they are from CDC. One lady, tall, heavyset, with greying hair, looks very familiar. She's no one that works in my office, but I'm sure I've seen her somewhere before, perhaps on a web page or visiting PGO.

Even leaving at nine the freeway was a solid mass of cars, backed up, according to the traffic report, from west of Chantilly all the way to I-495 (the Beltway). So we tried the route we took last night coming home, Route 29, but that was mostly backed up as well, which took so long we ended up again parking in the reserved parking space (non-reserved after 10 a.m.) and heading into town.

Our venue was the Natural History Museum today; we began at the galleries that trace the evolution of life through primitive human beings. When I was in school my favorite science class was in eighth grade, Mr. Plummer's Earth Science class. Today it all came rushing back, especially at the beginning: trilobites and brachiopods! We wandered through the Hall of Dinosaurs, with the classic skeleton models, explored the Ancient Seas, and saw models and skeletons of fossil mammals and explored the gallery about the Ice Age, which ends with a diorama of a Neaderthal funeral. (I had another nostalgic moment at a small exhibition about the evolution of the horse from small dog-sized, three-toed eohippus to the modern equine, since I did my eighth grade science project on the evolution of the horse, with models done in Play-Doh.)

Following this is an "African Voices" display which includes a beautiful hand-embroidered Tunisian wedding tunic and some fab art.

Part of the building was blocked off for a new ocean exhibition scheduled to open (as in the redone Museum of American History) in 2008, so we could not cross the building. Instead we took the elevator upstairs and visited the Western Culture exhibit. This began in the Indus Valley civilizations and worked through the years until it concluded with the Romans. There are relics from Troy there, as well as Egyptian collections including a mummified cat, also a mummified bull (it didn't explain why the bull was mummified), and an actual Roman mosaic taken from Carthage. There were all sorts of tools of everyday life such as knives (stone, copper, bronze, iron), lamps, needles, cooking pots and water jars, baskets, and all the other items of survival, plus an exhibit about the Ice Man found in the Alps several years back.

From there we entered the gallery about plate tectonics and the entire history of the development of land masses on earth, segueing into geology and ending with minerals and gems, the showpiece, of course, being the Hope Diamond. I was in hog-heaven here and wandered about blissfully along with James until I turned to examine something and noticed he had sat down to watch one of the films showing about plate tectonics. He doesn't usually do this without saying anything, so I sat down too and watched the film and then thought to look at my cell phone. We'd been walking around over three hours and he hadn't eaten for over six hours. No-no for diabetics; he was starting to "crash."

So we hurried out through the rest of the gallery and went downstairs to the Atrium Cafe Food Court. This has several selections, but we again know now what the bus tourguides meant when they commented on the overpriced food and suggested we go to Union Station for lunch! James had this really limp-looking hamburger that cost $5, we both had soup, and I had a salad (it was actually a very good salad—it had baby greens in it rather than that loathsome iceberg—and the soup wasn't bad, thick with noodles, chicken and carrots), and we split our desserts, a tiny apple tartlet and a brownie, plus just bottled water at $2.50 a pop! Lunch actually ended up costing more than dinner.

When we finished up with lunch we looked over the Museum's symbol, the huge African elephant in the rotunda, then explored the Hall of Mammals, which contains beautifully mounted specimens from all over the world. The taxidermist was very skillful in all aspects and there are some gorgeous dioramas, like two lionesses attacking a water buffalo and a bobcat catching a partridge in midair. The wolf looked as if he would howl at any minute. A raccoon relaxed over a branch, a lynx was frozen in mid-lope and kangaroos in mid-hop, and a possum dangled by his tail.

From animals in vegetables (uh, vegetation) we went to minerals. Instead of taking up where we left off, we started with the Hope Diamond (which is not clear like engagement ring diamonds, but blue tinted and very attractive) and worked backwards through the gem exhibit, to the minerals, to the rocks. There is a small but solid collection of gemstone jewelry that included a diamond and emerald crown and necklace given by Napoleon to his second wife Maria Louise, a 428-carat brilliant blue sapphire, and the most unexpect pleasure, a heart-shaped cut sky-blue diamond pendant that I adored. There was also a "crystal ball," a larger-than-bowling-ball sized perfectly clear quartz globe that reflected the entire room upside down.

The mineral exhibit was fabulous. I can't describe all the different colors, shapes, and sizes of the different ones exhibited, but it was the full range of the spectrum and more, from pea sized to larger than a big dog. Super geodes, including a huge one studded with amythyst quartz. This segued via an exhibit of the products of mines, including gold, silver, copper, and even plum-sized nuggets of pure platinum, which returned us to rocks—how they form and how they erode and how they change from various means—and where we had left off earlier.

By this time it was very late and we had no time left to see the insect gallery—I was only interested in the butterflies anyway—and the reptiles (again, not something I really cared to see) and the bones. We hit the gift shop (it's a State Law) and between the two of use we bought a couple of Christmas gifts. Then it was closing time and time to trudge across the Mall in the drizzle and get back to the Metro.

Amazingly, the freeway was not backed up tonight and we could come back straight that way. We "supped" at Bob Evans and bought four loaves of pumpkin bread (we loved it so last time and are planning to freeze it to last the rest of the winter). They have a little gift shop alá Cracker Barrel and I bought a cute sign for the laundry room and two little "acorn men." Then we came back to "hearth" and hotel and our critters. I leave the television on for Pidgie and it was off again; it turns itself on and off at its own sweet will—Sunday morning it woke us up at eight by clicking on!

Labels: travel, vacation

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