Planes, Trains, Automobiles, Museums, and Statues

The retouching helped with the smoke, but still hazy

Tuna here.  My wife and I visited that most wretched hide of scum and villainy last week, but we were fortunate enough to not run into any of that. It was a business trip that had been scheduled for a couple months, and my wife had never been to DC, so I planned to take her along.  Always being fairly cost conscious, I found her a flight that was semi-reasonable.  Now when I say semi, it seems that all airfares are quite high right now, especially to DC. There is still a lot of revenge travel going on, schools had begun to let out for the summer, and you have your regular government travel to and from the area, all which seem to increase demand and keep those prices high.  Nevertheless, I found her a flight that was workable and not too painfully expensive.

However, about 2 weeks before my scheduled departure I received notice from the Navy office at the Pentagon that the space was limited and we were restricted to one member per command. Completely ignoring the reality of the situation and being somewhat self-centered, I tried to stress how important it was for me to go, but I was directed to allow one of my lieutenants to take the trip.

So, if you caught my foreshadowing, the ticket I purchased for my wife was non-refundable. Yes, we could get a travel credit, but that's a P.I.T.A.. My travel was officially canceled so I decided to salvage the trip and find my own flight there. Increased demand and two week advance purchase of a ticket to DC?  That one is going to sting.  Nevertheless, I found a seat on the same flight as my wife.  She was going to travel a day later than I, and so we were both together for the red-eye through Phoenix, landing in DC about 7:45 in the morning. Unfortunately sleep was elusive for each of us and so we were exhausted by the time we got to our hotel.  We were able to check in very early, which mitigated some of our fatigue.  After a shower and a very brief nap, we made our way to the mall.  No, we're not doing any shopping, I'm talking about the National Mall and its plethora of monuments.  

Had to post this-  John Paul Jones- a founding father of the Navy.  

The photo of Farragut didn't turn out well.

Is that a Dolphin, or just a fish at the base of his statue?  Posted due to my final paragraph subject.

WWII Memorial

Reflecting pool.  I think the Park Service laid off the pool cleaners.

Viet Nam Memorial

His statue was quite dirty which didn't sit well with me

Heavily zoomed in, you can see the difference in materials used in the Washington Monument.

Construction was halted for many years.

My Viet Nam era USAF Nurse mother would appreciate this.  She volunteered to go over but got pregnant with my older sister.

Korea War Memorial.  Apparently at night it's amazing with LED lighting

MLK Statue

Jefferson Memorial.  Unfortunately it was closed, and too far to walk at this point in the day.

Part of a very expansive FDR memorial, much focused on the New Deal

We walked our feet off that day and coupled with the lack of sleep in the previous 36 hours, we were exhausted. I usually average about 11,000 steps on my Fitbit each day, and I broke 31,000.  We finished the mall ending up at the Roosevelt memorial and could go no further. Fortunately cabs in DC are easy to find and metered reasonably, often cheaper than Uber.  

The next day, still with sore feet, we made our way out to Chantilly Virginia.  The Metro now goes all the way out to Dulles, and it's a slow bus from there to what would be the highlight of the trip (at least for me), the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Center.  

If you ever use that method to get there, don't take it all the way into the Dulles airport, which will require you to walk from the Metro underground into the airport, upstairs, back out of the airport, and across the parking lot to the bus station.  Get off one step early at Innovation Center and go downstairs make to the bus stop.  That same bus stopped at Innovation Center anyway which saved us 15 minutes or more on the back side when I figured it out.

No S-3 Vikings there so I snapped my good friend's ride.

I should have gone upstairs to take a better photo

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=n4mqwJ569_M&feature=share

This one looks like it's been around the world a few times

One of the jets my Dad loaded weapons on

Unfortunately it was pretty much an all-day trip as there was track maintenance between Roslyn and McLean, so we had to get off and get on a bus, not realizing that until the silver line headed back east with us still on it, twice.  They were making the announcement but it being horribly enunciated over a lousy sound system didn't help.  By the time we got back into DC, other Smithsonian museums were getting ready to close.  Fortunately the portrait gallery is open until 7:00 p.m. and we saw the whole thing before getting booted out with the last of the visitors.

Henry Ford

Her gown was seemingly translucent

I am avoiding politics for the most part in this post, but as I was looking at the presidential portraits there, I noticed an interesting dichotomy.  The one of Obama was very modern had him sitting in a chair surrounded by Green ivy. Very bright and cheerful.  On the opposite side of that exact same wall in the center of the room, was one of Trump.  Very dark and foreboding in my opinion.  I don't know if these are official presidential portraits or just for that gallery, but this one is very dark as you can see.  Maybe I'm reading into it too much, but it's sort of shows how much he is disliked in DC.  

When I searched online for the portrait, a different one came up. You can look for it using his name at the link here.  Maybe that was a photograph that they used until the dark one was completed.

The Hope Diamond- better colors in person

"Hey Dumdum, you got gumgum?"*

I think this is an early Toronto Raptor

A very bad kitty

I think I'm gonna need a bigger camera

The Elephant in the room

Saw some old paperwork here (Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights)

No photos allowed!

The next day after a good night's sleep we saw a bunch of dead things at the natural History museum. My son loved the movie "Night At The Museum, which was actually filmed in the New York Smithsonian, but the sequel was in DC.   We followed that up with a visit to the Navy Memorial a block or so away, then to visit my former squadron mate who lives in Georgetown.  Next door to Kissinger's old house.  It was a nice visit as his home is well decorated by his wife, they are excellent hosts, and Georgetown is a very vibrant neighborhood.  As we got out of the train station in Dupont circle, we had to swim upstream through the pride parade celebrants, which was interesting to say the least.

We finished off the weekend with a somber visit to the Arlington National Cemetery.  Another long day with a bunch of steps on my Fitbit, renewed soreness in our feet, and a quick drop off at the airport. Unfortunately Dallas was closed due to lightning so we diverted to Oklahoma City for 3 hours on deck.  By the time we took off again we had missed our connection, finding out later that it was actually canceled.   And with the revenge travel that's going on, there were no seats on American until Wednesday, so they were gracious enough to reroute us on united.  The flight was the next day (really later that morning) at 6:00 a.m. through Newark.   We got home approximately 25 hours after arriving at the airport in DC.

I am definitely not a fan of overnight airport grunge, both from the red eye on the way there and the long trip home.  I will plan better next time, avoiding the North route in the winter, and the southern route in the summer.

All in all, a very good trip and I'm very glad to have finally seen Udvar-Hazy.  Plenty more to see I expect, and will plan another trip eventually.

By the way, you may have heard me talk about my current job, and my frustration with not being able to see my efforts bear fruit.   Working in the Navy's budget is a very challenging field, and finding money for MCM was always difficult.  Fortunately another opportunity arose and I jumped on it.  It's back in the ASW world, at the Undersea Warfighting Development Center in Pt. Loma.  I'll be working with a bunch of great Americans I once worked with years ago, and at a higher pay rate.  I expect I will still be doing mine warfare but on the mining side of things vice the countermeasures side, as the bubbleheads now own the mission.

*Night at the Museum quote