Yay for the Smithsonian!

One of the things we really wanted to do during our brief trip to D.C. was go to any of the Smithsonian museums. We knew that we wouldn't have time for all of them, so we decided to go to the Natural History one. Originally, we planned to take the metro into the city.

When we got to the metro station, there was only metered parking, which wasn't an option for us. Then, we had to decide to be brave and drive into the city or hang out in the suburb that we were at the day before. We decided to be brave and drive in. It took a lot of courage since we got crazy lost the other day. By some grace, we managed to successfully drive in and stumble across an underground parking structure. We parked at the Regan building. If you have to use a parking structure, it's a nifty one and within decent walking distance to all the Smithsonians and the National Mall.

The Natural History museum blew me away. There were so many cool things to see and it was free! I learned all about the evolution of horses. I took a ton of pictures and I had a hard time narrowing them down, so there's a ton of pictures below. My top picks were the Easter Island head, the meteorites, and the Hope diamond. Afterwards, we tried to make it to the National American History museum. It was right next door, but it was closed for renovation. Boo! FYI, it'll be closed until Fall 2008. At least, we got the Natural History museum done.

Yay, we made it without getting ridiculously lost!

The rotunda entrance. Love it!
Doesn't it look something out of a movie?

One of two Easter Island statues in the U.S.

A huge chunk of a meteorite.

Hope Diamond which is HUGE in person.

The ancestor of the armadillo.

A spiral burrow.

Some prehistoric bird.

Still enthusiastic even though we still have two more stories to look at.

Ancient Crush.

This is how a giraffe drinks.

My hubster exploring a pouch.
It had a teeny kangaroo in it.

A calcite bird's nest.
My hubster said, "I guess they didn't make it."

A dung beetle.
(I just liked how this picture turned out but dung beetles are important.)