Summer Road Trip: Air and Space Museum (Udvar-Hazy Center)

I think James' favorite part of the trip was visiting the Udvar-Hazy Center, which is an annex to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum located out near Dulles Airport. I think he could have spent several days there! The kids thought it was cool, but there is a limit to how much museum time we could subject them to. Some of the highlights are  pictured below...***

Space Shuttle Enterprise

Enola Gay (dropped "the bomb" on Hiroshima)

SR-71 Blackbird (flies 3 times the speed of sound)

Another view of the Enola Gay from the catwalk - this place is HUGE!

***Note: Interestingly enough, the same day I made this post I read that yesterday, the Space Shuttle Discovery was powered down for the last time and will replace the Space Shuttle Enterprise at the Udvar-Hazy museum. The Enterprise was only flown within the Earth's atmosphere to test landings, etc. and never actually went into space. The Discovery was in operation for 28 years and flew 39 missions! It will be displayed at Udvar-Hazy in April 2012 and the Enterprise will move to Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in NYC. I know that I and my friends and family in Houston were disappointed to hear that Houston wasn't going to get a shuttle to display! Anyway, we now have another reason to go back someday...to see the Discovery!

Almost forgot...we had some time left after our trip to Udvar-Hazy, so we took the subway over to the Capitol. It was too late in the day for a real tour, but we were allowed in on the last "photo tour" of the day, which basically means you can go to the rotunda real quick and take some pictures. That was fine for our needs, since the kids probably wouldn't have been up for a much longer tour! We were glad to at least be able to go inside.

Look at the wonder and joy on his face! ha.

Summer Road Trip: Washington, D.C.

Summer Road Trip: Washington DC

Leaving Pigeon Forge, we continued on our way to Washington, D.C. We took a detour to drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway, which was very peaceful and beautiful! We arrived at our hotel late in the evening, so the first night in D.C. we just ate some pizza and then hit the hay.

The next day, we went on a walking tour of the sights. I should mention that the summer of 2011 was the hottest on record for many places in the country and it was HOT in D.C. (100+ degrees). Being from Austin, TX, we are used to it getting hot, but when we are at home we don't normally go out on long walks in the middle of the day! Just keep that in mind when looking at these pictures - most of the time we were dripping with sweat. Of course, that made the Smithsonian Museums all that more exciting, since they were air conditioned!

 The White House

James' and Aaron's facial expressions are funny.

The Lincoln Memorial - a family favorite

It's hard not to be moved going in there.

The kids were excited to ride the subway!

Isn't it a law or something that you have to take a picture of the T-Rex?

This photo is for Julie's parents since they met while working for Eastern Airlines!

Guns! Fun!

Aaron took a lot of these pictures - he liked being in charge of that.