It’s Furman’s Spring Break! Yep, right here at the end of February. So, with threats of snow in the forecast for Virginia and Maryland, we decide to head to Washington DC to see our friends John and Kate Kaup, who are up there for a year while on sabbatical. The snow wasn’t enough to hinder travel, so we left early Friday morning and drove on up, arriving just in time to get the kids all excited before bedtime.
The Kaups are living in Arlington, so Saturday morning I went looking for a geocache while others went shopping or taking kids to karate lessons. In the afternoon, Kate went to work, but first dropped Laura and I off to visit the museums. I just love the imposing DC architecture, designed to inspire awe and admiration in the masses for our federal government.
However, the dinky “little red schoolhouses” that serve as entry ways to the Department of Education could go away.
Our first stop was the Air and Space Museum. It was dreadfully hot, and more crowded than I would imagine for a cold day in February. We did the “must sees”, and also had to stop by the planetary exploration section. Laura’s father was truly a rocket scientist, and had worked on many of the early planetary probes with Hughes Aerospace.
The next stop was the Museum of American History. Yeah, we saw the puffy shirt and ruby slippers. Skipping the war stuff, we visited the First Ladies exhibit, but enjoyed the Information Age and History of Science exhibits even more.
The next day we took the kids to the National Zoo. Truth be told, this is really why Laura wanted to come. The Zoo website has several critter cams, including a cam on the new cheetah cubs and on the naked mole rats, which are some of the ugliest creatures on the face of the planet. There was quite a line for the cheetah cubs, but they were worth the wait. We also saw the famous pandas, and spent about 3 hours at the zoo.
When we got back, the weather forecase looked grim, so we left early evening and drove part way back to stay ahead of the storm.