dc[part.thrice]

[sunday | 5.2.09 | day.three]

sunday morning was another groggy morning, but we managed to get up at a similar hour to the day before. after showering and getting ourselves ready we headed down to breakfast again. as with saturday we werent disappointed, although i think we both had a little less breakfast overall this time around. they didnt have the burritos, but there were scrambled eggs and sausage and most everything else from the day before.

after breakfast we quickly grabbed our stuff for the day, plotted out our stops and were on our way. well, no sooner did we hit the lobby door than we realized today was going to be a little different. it was lightly drizzling out and we didnt have an umbrella or ponchos or anything else to protect ourselves with. so after exchanging glances we pressed forward and made our way to the metro stop. luckily, the rain wasnt heavy and the temperate outside was moderate enough that we werent getting soaked and frozen, but we were getting damp and chilled a little, oh-well.

soon enough we were on the train and headed to our first stop, federal center s.

as we got on the escalators and slowly rose out of the depths we were a little disheartened to find that the rain hadnt magically ceased during our 15 minute subterranean reprieve. so after glancing at our maps and trying to find our bearings karen grabbed a free newsprint of some kind from a nearby dispenser and we set out in what i thought was the right direction. as i mentioned before the subway maps vs. street maps are a little difficult to rectify from scale and abstraction, so it turns out we were heading a little off course at first. soon enough though we realized my mistake, corrected and before long we were across the street from our first museum of the day - the national museum of the american indian.

id seen pictures of it at some point before so i knew what the building looked like, but it was definitely cooler in person. from what i remember the idea behind the design was a symbolic representation of the cave cities in the southwest so its got some really fun geometry. inside is a huge domed atrium space with an oculus and there are various different exhibits and gift shops on all the levels. we visited a couple of the exhibits which were pretty interesting to see, and then did a little research on my native american heritage. im some very small part potawatomi and am officially registered with the tribal rolls, and was curious to see what the national museum had on my tribe. well, sadly, they didnt have a whole lot. it took quite a bit of digging but we did find a few pages in one book in one of the bookstores that gave a brief synopsis of the tribes origins and then in one of the displays there was an actual artifact about beading, but other than that, ziltch. but i thought my parents would get a kick out what we did find, so theres a few images in the albums. thats alright though, the main center for the potawatomi is in oklahoma now and while i havent made it to see what theyve got yet, i plan to someday and im sure its much more in depth. anyway, we spent quite some time at the american indian museum - hoping it would stop raining, however, by the time we were ready to go... it hadnt.

so we headed back out into the rain and soon found a vendor with umbrellas so we bought a small one - probably should have gotten a larger one in retrospect - and huddled together as we made our way to our next stop a few blocks away, the smithsonian museum of natural history. i was really looking forward to this one because wed seen some posters of an imax film about dinosaurs that looked pretty cool and also something about a giant squid on display. so after getting ourselves thoroughly dampened and our feet thoroughly soaked after sloshing our way over, we made it inside and found ourselves in the midst of hundreds of people, a large majority of which were children who were having a good time but were definitely a little obnoxious. anyway the first thing i wanted to check on was the imax times and prices and as it turns out they were charging like 10 bucks per person and we really werent prepared to pay that price. so we decided to just see most of the exhibits instead and made our way through the museum. the first area we went through was the ocean stuff and got to see all kind of cool artifacts. they had huge lifelike models of different marine life, and a ton of real skeletons and stuff that were preserved for study. we really enjoyed ourselves and took a ton of pictures.

after the marine stuff we went on to the dinosaurs section and looked through all the fossils and skeletons of the dinosaurs they had on display - again a lot of pictures.

after the dinosaurs we went through the space exhibit and then the geological formations and saw all kinds of crazy rocks and gems and stuff. they even had rocks with hair! it was pretty crazy. the last stop we made was to see the hope diamond which was currently on display - karen REALLY liked it... hah, she wishes! after another trip through the ridiculously-over-priced gift shop we were getting hungry and had seen just about all we wanted to that day, and with the rain and all... we decided to call it a day and go find some food.

so we found the nearest subway station and headed back to the hotel to see if we could find a dining guide of some kind and figure out lunch. well... after consulting the internet and our brochures we found that not much was open on sunday in the area we were in and settled on a little deli/bakery - au bon pain - just down the block from our hotel and had a nice little lunch. they had some really great macaroni and cheese that we shared as a side and all kinds of little pastry goodies for dessert. after lunch we were both pretty exhausted and since it was already about 3pm and still raining we decided to head back to the room for a little relaxing, some tv, and a nap. well... the nap ended up being a little longer that we expected i think, and around 8 we woke up and decided to have a quick order-in dinner before calling it a night. we had a very very early morning on monday and it was going to be a loooong day, so we decided it was better get our rest. after confirming our shuttle pick up to the airport [because really who wants to change trains a dozen times at 3 in the morning?] we drifted off to sleep before getting up again at 2am and making the trip home.

as for the trip home, it went just as planned, was very uneventful, and after napping on the plane and landing back in cincy we got the truck from parking and were on our way straight to work and school. and thus, our trip [and the story] is complete. its actually been a pretty short week by comparison to our "vacation" but im looking forward to the weekend. we dont have any real plans yet for whats going to happen this weekend, but if we do anything fun or exciting ill be sure to fill you in next week.

hope you all have a fantastic weekend and a happy mother's day!