Saturday, November 29, 2008

The Smithsonian National Museum of American History

Since we are spending Christmas in Texas, I could not justify spending the day shopping so we headed up to D.C. and went to the newly opened National Museum of American History . This branch of the Smithsonian family has been closed for at least two years for renovations and overhauling and expanding of the exhibits.

They have Julia Child's Kitchen..... Sorry for the flash flare...The Ruby Slippers from the Wizard of Oz, THE Star Spangled Banner (a 3.5 hour line, didn't get to see) Trains, trains, trains and more trains, old cars, and all sorts of transportation from the past. The lines were several hours long to see many of the exhibits so we plan on going back on a weekend when it isn't so crowed...if that is ever possible. What we did see was incredible. The museum is huge.... three stories and at least two city blocks long. Gallery after gallery of Americana at its best. I really felt old when I saw stuff from my childhood, a few short years ago.

Nope the trains are not from my childhood..... I am WAY younger than that!
But because Carson loves trains...we spent the majority of our time there.




Carson rode the El train, from Chicago.
Some really cool old cars.... and I don't know cars, so I am NOT going to guess what this one is. Carson said it was "Doc" from Cars...and I believe Doc was a Hudson....so????
This just reopened last weekend....so needless to say...the place was packed! Fortunately, we walked right in with no lines, however Wayne wasn't so fortunate. He searched for a parking spot for about 35 minutes and met us in the museum....but not before waiting in a line that wrapped around the building and was about two city blocks long. It went pretty fast and he soon joined us. We were literally shoulder to shoulder and butt to butt packed with people in this museum.

I think we are museum junkies.... at least Smithsonian junkies...we have hit almost all of them and a couple of them twice! This one is definitely going to be on the list of we must go back to because we visited two galleries on one wing of one floor...in about 3 hours....way too much to see in one visit.

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