Airplane Adventure

Today we spent the morning at another museum. Most of the Smithsonian buildings are right in the heart of Washington, D.C. But the Air and Space Museum is in Dulles, a lot closer to my parents' home, and we heard it was a must-see for the kids. It turned out to be a must-see for the grown-ups too, especially Ryan -- he was in heaven!

Me, the boys, a stranger, and my dad

Ryan and my dad took pictures of each other :)

They had all types of airplanes. Some were from the first years of flight.


Others were very new. We didn't get a picture, but they had a Concord jet that was decommissioned around 2002 if I remember right.

A lot of the airplanes were from World War II, including this one. This is the Enola Gay -- the plane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima.
And if you find an airplane that shares your name, you have to take a picture!


This Blackbird was in the center of the museum -- amazing! It made a speed record when it flew its last flight: Los Angeles to Dulles in 1 hour and a few minutes! (It took us about 4 hours from Salt Lake on a commercial plane!)



There was also a Space Hangar in the museum that had the Enterprise shuttle. It was also amazing to see things from the original Apollo missions, like a decontamination trailer (I don't remember what it was really called). When the astronauts from the moon landing arrived back on earth, no one was sure if they would have weird space germs. So they had to stay in a little trailer for over a month to see if they would show signs of disease. Wow.



Once again we left Elizabeth with Grandma. It has been really nice to be able to do all of these touristy things and not have to worry about a little one who wants to run around everywhere or who needs a nap. Thanks for being a great babysitter, Mom!

All 3 boys enjoyed the museum. Nathan could have stayed longer with Ryan -- he was really into it. But as you can see, Benjamin and Joshua got to the point where they just wanted to be done and get some lunch!