The Natural History Museum has always been one of Jones’ favorite museums. It was his favorite even when we had to sneak past the elephant.
Yeah, this elephant.
It used to scare the crap out of him.
Luckily, now he finds that amusing, so he’s more than happy to walk past the elephant in pursuit of his favorite display: the dinosaurs. He’s been begging to go this summer, so we finally did it today.
We parked at the Pentagon City Mall because the weather was iffy and I didn’t feel like walking in a rain storm. We hopped the metro and quickly got to the Smithsonian stop and it was a short walk from there. Our first stop was to pick up tickets to the Butterfly exhibit. (Tip: it’s free on Tuesdays, but get there early and pick up tickets immediately.) We had an hour+ before our entry time, so we looked around the insects and then (of course) headed to the dinosaurs.
I love this museum – so much for everyone. We saw dinosaurs, prehistoric man, mummies, skeletons of all sorts, mammals, insects, and butterflies. I felt like we covered every.single.inch of the place, but no, we definitely missed the Genome exhibit, the nature photography, and the Hope diamond (my kids never want to see that one). We were there for a total of almost 4 hours including lunch (the Smithsonian membership is really coming in useful this summer!) We also passed on the Imax movie this time as we wanted to get home before rush hour.
Not terribly surprisingly, the real adventure came on our way home. We quickly caught a train and were merrily making our way home when it stopped under the river. Umm… After about 15 minutes, we backed up to Foggy Bottom and they offloaded the train. I have very little patience for Metro’s shenanigans, so we quickly hopped in a cab and got dropped off back at the mall.
This is supposed to be a fitness blog, huh? Well, yesterday I did a workout from Tina Reale’s Best Body Bootcamp that totally kicked my butt. It certainly made walking up the stairs at the Metro and in the museum interesting. I planned to run when we got home, but after our little adventure getting home, I just wasn’t feeling it. Ahh, well, I’ll run another day I’m sure.
Another good day at “Camp Mama”…
Next up – the Baltimore Aquarium.
aaa.. We have a museam just like that here in the UK! Hope you all had fun!
Joan
Sounds like a fun vacation to me. But the metro thing would have driven me nuts too. Once Emily and I were loaded down with race winnings and snacks (really) and the metro stopped in Chinatown and offloaded everyone. Not fun.
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I miss those days when the kids were little and school holidays were all about adventure, discoveries and exploring. Ah well, maybe they’ll provide me with grandchildren one of these days and I’ll get to revisit it again
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We’re headed to the Natural History Museum on Monday! =) When are you going to the Baltimore Aquarium? We are members, and go often. We’re looking forward to the new Blacktip Reef! Should be fun.
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I love that museum I went there a few years ago! It’s a fun activity with the kids that educational too. I used to love when my parents would take me to things like that!
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Awesome! Museums like that are just fantastic and I love visiting them. We don’t have enough here in SA though.
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I miss living close to the baltimore aquarium.
HAVE FUN!
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