Air & Space and Natural History Museum
Since several of the other museums I wanted to take Maggie to are not open Mondays and Tuesdays, I decided that we would start with a trip to the National Air & Space Museum . This is probably Maggie’s favorite Smithsonian museum (though the Natural History Museum would be a very close second).
I really wanted to show her the Explore the Universe exhibit, which is the first I’ve ever seen that features some aspects of high energy astrophysics (like a flight spare model from the EGRET telescope on the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory, and a piece from one of the detectors on the ROSAT X-ray telescope). These artifacts were also featured in a cool “Museum Roadshow” interactive display, where they parody “Antiques Roadshow” to tell you a bit about each artifact.
We also stopped by the Natural History Museum, so Maggie could see the dinosaurs and the big blue whale. Unfortunately, they are renovating the room where the whale used to be, so no more whale. We, of course, went through the gift shops, too, and there Maggie accidentally dropped the lid of a box between the shelves and store-front window. <Giggle> We were going to tell the clerk, but she was looking frazzled and cranky, so we just slipped out instead.