Washington D. C.

Date: October 3, 2017

After visiting New York City we went through Delaware Bay to Chesapeake Bay. While in Chesapeake Bay we spent a day in Washington D. C. This is the front of The White House:

We were in D. C. just a few days after the shooting in Las Vegas, so the flags were at half staff on all official buildings.

The Washington Monument at a distance:

The back of The White House:

Here is the national archives building:

We went through a park with sculptures. Here is one by Louise Bourgeois (While we were in New York, MOMA showed an exhibition of her works):

A Parisian Metro entrance:

A silver tree:

We visited the Museum of Natural History. The had a butterfly exhibition and here are some of the butterflies drinking pineapple juice:

...and another one:

The museum also had a very impressive exhibition of minerals and rock. Here are few:

After the National Museum of Natural History we went to the National Air and Space museum:

On the left you can see a German V2 rocket and in the background is the Skylab space station. Skylab was a US space station that operated from 1973 to 1979. It is 6.6 meters in diameter and 11.1 meters long. The Skylab on display was a backup space station and in the 1980's it was ready to be taken out of the museum and put in space.

The second Skylab was never put in space since the money went to the space shuttle instead. The plan was to use the space shuttle to lift the orbit of the first Skylab in space, but delays in development of the shuttle caused Skylab to crash in 1979. Debris from the space station landed in Australia and NASA was issued a 400$ fine for littering as a joke from the Australians.

Here is an Apollo Lunar Module, the space ship that landed on the moon:

This one was the second one built out of about 15. It was used for testing and never flew.

The Capitol: