For the Horde!

[fbhjr]

For my wife’s birthday I bought her tickets to go see the horde down in Washington DC. We had both read about it and seen the TV special. The National Geographic museum is the only place it is coming to in the US and we both wanted to see it. We could get plane tickets for only $100 each, a rental car for under $100 and the museum is only $8 each. So, that seemed like a not SUPER expensive present for my wife.

Of course, Friday was game night and Sunday is sword practice. So, we decided to do it as a day trip and not add hotel too it as well.

To do that, we scheduled 6AM down and 9:30PM flights back. That meant getting up at 3 AM to get to the airport in time.
This made us tired. I’m not someone who can sleep on planes or in strange places.
We did see someone at the airport who did not have this problem.

Whoever this woman was, she slept right through the gate person opening the door too soon and causing an earsplitting alarm to go off for almost a minute.
We were a bit worried about if that would cause some sort of security issue, but it didn’t and the plane took off on time.


We circled around and flew back over Boston. It was a great view of the city just before dawn.


We also flew over Worcester. Sadly there is a low cloud over our home.


By the time we were landing in Baltimore, the sun was up.


The rental car place at the Baltimore airport is several miles from the airport and is huge. It’s more than 1/4 mile long and almost as wide, and full of rental cars.
On the bus out to the rental car depot there was a guy that looked a lot like evrgreen.

No, really.


As a “preferred” customer I get to go right to the car.

Lot of cars there.


But, we finally found ours.


The car was very new (under 300 miles) and very clean, having been just cleaned.


The car is very electric and has all sorts of screens and such.


There wasn’t a key in the ignition, because there wasn’t an ignition. It’s one of those cars that if the key is inside of it, it will start when you push the button. It started, so I knew the key was there.
But, I couldn’t find it.
We looked in the glove box, center console, under the seats and in the back.
No key.
So, I flagged down an attendant, and she looked.
She couldn’t find it either.
We both agreed it must be in the car as it was running.
So, we drove it over to the booth so they could look again.
When we got out, we found that one of us had been sitting on it.

The good news is, that we were on our way.

(I’m not sure if you can tell how much the van going around the corner in front of us was smoking. But, it was like following a fog cloud down the road.)

We got into DC without any problems. We both thought this was a great name for a BBQ place in DC.


We think we saw the Occupy Washington camp.


We got to the museum 1/2 hour before it opened. So, we went down to the coffee shop down the block for breakfast.
I asked for a sandwich without cheese. This was a major problem as the women working there are not allowed to directly touch the food. So, I peeled it off myself and then let her cook it.


The Mayflower hotel is right across the street and has a roof I liked.


Then, it was up to the hoard!


I liked that the National Geographic museum has fake mountains in front of it.


They don’t allow photos in the exhibit. Very sad.
It is a nice exhibit. It wasn’t as small as I feared. It was three rooms and a fair number of artifacts.
We looked at it all, read all the signs, watched all the video and it took a bit under two hours. For me, that’s a huge amount. I usually speed through museums. Even ones I like. I go in, look at some things that interest me and go out.
So, that shows you how interested I was to spend that time there. It is VERY cool.
Of course, no one knows who buried the gold, why, where they got it, or why they didn’t come back for it.
There are a lot of guesses. Some I’m not sure about.
But, no one knows for sure.

As it was only about noon, we decided to go over to the Smithsonian. As parking there is difficult, we decided to keep the car where it was and take the subway over.


I’ve always thought it belonged as something in a Planet of the Apes movie.


It’s been 35 years since I started riding it. It has fallen on hard times. Stations closed, elevators broken, trains not allowing passengers.
On the good side, it as expanded a lot. When I used to ride it, the National Airport was the end of the line. Now, it’s only about 1/2 down the line.


But, it worked enough to get to the national mall.


There we found Segway gangs roaming the mall terrorizing people.


But, they won’t work in the shadow of the castle.


We went over to the air and space museum. I saw the Gemini project I like so much.



We spent a lot of time looking at Robbert Goddard’s things. He’s a Worcester boy who managed to build the first liquid fueled rocket and blow up a cabbage field two towns over from us. So, he got a grant to go out to New Mexico and shoot rockets.




My wife was very impressed by the Apollo 11 command module.


I also like the collection of aircraft firsts.


The first plane to go faster than sound.


The key of the city of Boston give to pioneering fliers.


And, of course, while there I have to visit my favorite space ship ever.


I remember watching this on TV more than 40 years ago.


It’s nice to see it in the Smithsonian, even if they keep it in the gift shop basement.




I was surprised by the “Solar System Marbles.”

Not because they didn’t seem to have anything to do with the solar system, or space in general.
But, because they felt the need to put this sign on them.


Outside of the museum they have a mockup solar system.


There was a mailbox next to Pluto, so we dropped ravena_kade’s pixie hidden necklace in the mailbox to get it back to her.
Pluto is a long way from the sun. You can’t see it from the sun location.


Then, we went over to the new Native American museum.

This was my first time there as it has only just opened.

The museum is so new, parts of it are still in bubble wrap.


They were dedicating the totem pole in the lobby which involved a lot of singing and dancing.


While probably not politically correct of me, I didn’t like the way they presented some of the material at the museum.
My humanities requirements in college were done in colonial history. I know how badly the natives were treated. My own family was involved in that. No doubt that it was horrible and should not have been done.
But, the introduction floor of the museum seemed to dwell on the bad side. It was almost a celebration of the genocide that happened.
I can’t say that is wrong, but it doesn’t seem like the best way to deal with it.

For example, they have a display of languages never to be heard again because everyone who spoke them was killed.

So, in the gift shop I looked for a book on Indian languages as that sounded like something interesting to look at.
Nothing.
That just seems like a wasted opportunity to me.
Tell people they should feel guilty for this, but don’t give them any way to look deeper into the matter?

The “here are the guns your people used to kill our people” exhibit seemed to be the worst of it for me.



They also had a different version of the King Phillip’s war than the one I heard in the swamps of Rhode Island when I visited the place it ended.


They had a bunch of swords too.


There was only one thing I saw that I thought was outright wrong.


One of the reasons so many natives died was because of the reach of their swords?

That’s just stupid.
I’m not saying that the Europeans didn’t have better tech. They did.
But, the long sword blades made the difference? Not the GUNS? The same guns that you filled a wall next to this with as an example of what was used to kill your people?
Or the armor that stopped the native weapons from working?
Metal in general with made better weapons, armor, guns, tools, etc.
I expected better from the Smithsonian.

They did have some nice exhibits on the legends and stories that I liked.


And, the dancing was nice.

Granted, it was a special thing and not the normal museum thing.
The totem pole will stay.


My wife really liked the dancing. But, I was not feeling well and needed something to eat.
So, I went over to the cafeteria where they have native themed meals.
I had a pulled buffalo burger and felt much better.

Then, back out in the cold and wind of the capitol.


On the national mall, there were people playing rugby. That’s cool, but unexpected in DC. Several other people commented on it too.


Then, we took the subway back to the National Geographic building and went to the gift store. (We hadn’t wanted to carry the stuff to the Smithsonian and back when the car was there.)


Outside of the building they have all sorts of other displays.


And, interesting fountains.


Then, back in the car. The traffic in the afternoon was much worse than on a Saturday morning.


We drove back up to Baltimore and called the godkids to see if they were free.
They were, and we agreed to meet at a place near the airport so we could see them and still make it to our plane on time.
Their mother picked an Indian Restaurant.
When we got there, it was clear they were setting up for a large function.
“We have 35 people who are going to want dinner here at 7:30,” the chief waiter said.
“Well, it is 5:30 now,” their mother said. “We can eat in an hour and you’ll still have time.”
“Four adults and two kids in an hour?” he asked.
“Don’t worry, we’ll do it,” I told him.
They seated us. We had a nice dinner with appetizers, main course and desert.
When we walked out past him 59 minutes later he shook my hand.
“I didn’t think you’d do it,” he said. “But, you did.”

I told him I was tell everyone back home that The Royal Taj was a good place to eat. So, consider yourself told.

Sadly the lack of time means no pictures of the kids. Sad.
But, we did have a good visit and were glad we stopped by.

Then, back to the airport which left us wondering, just what is that icon supposed to be?


Remember when I was saying how big the rental car place was?
This is the lobby.

That is only the lobby of the rental car place. Not a terminal at the airport.

You can tell the difference because the terminal still has the giant Christmas ornaments.


My wife decided to give me a gift and bought us seat upgrades to business class going home.
So, we sat in the very front row of the plane.

We got on first, had drinks before take off and free snacks.
And, you get a window with a better view as there is no wing in the way.


We were also the first ones off the plane, out of the terminal and out of the parking lot.

We got home about 11:30, after leaving at 3:45.
It was a long day.

But, a lot of fun too.

Comments

[ravena-kade.livejournal.com]

Hey, maybe my necklace just wanted to be with The Horde and that's why the pixies put it where you could find it =D

[chris-warrior.livejournal.com]

um, wow.

i'm always impressed by your updates, but... wow.

[evrgreen.livejournal.com]

Wow! You certainly DID fit alot in to a single weekend - and even a single day!!

Interesting that you saw my counterpart (TOS:The alternative factor) in the rental bus - he really is the antimatter half you know..

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

He did look a lot like you. Enough that I said "Is that Mike up there?"

If he is the antimatter you, stay away from BWI!

[palusbuteo.livejournal.com]

AWESOME!!!!

[cosmicirony.livejournal.com]

Even though you couldn't take pictures in the Hoard exhibit, I knew you wouldn't let us down! Your reports are like being along for the trip, without any of the hassles :-)

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

It is sad it is not coming any closer as I think you and your wife would get a lot out of it.
The examples of the gold work from the 700's is very nice.
Especially things like they used thorns to clean the dirt off as they found that did less damage to the gold than any modern material.

[cissa.livejournal.com]

Yeah- it sounds really enticing... but not enticing enough to go through all that, sadly. :)

One of the reasons my forefinger and thumbnails are usually a wreck is that they are great, safe ways to hold metal in place as i work on it... Thorns sound like a brilliant idea!

[pallid-regina.livejournal.com]

Neat trip!