A Day of Discovery

Thought for the day:  One time I went to a museum where all the work in the museum had been done by children. They had all the paintings up on refrigerators. [Stephen Wright]

I'm a huge fan of museums. All kinds of museums. In fact, in one of last year's posts, I confessed to being a bit of a Museum Slut . (Go ahead. You can go back and read about some weirdo museums. I'll wait.)

So, anyhow, it should come as no surprise that we visited another new museum while we were in Maryland. Well, not a new museum,  per se, but a new museum to us.

How cool is that picture? I've had it for a year or so, and thought of maybe using it sometime to go along with a post about how everybody needs help now and then. (Who knows? Still might, someday.) The idea of the a space shuttle hitching a ride strikes me as so totally cool. Even better, when we were in Florida a few years ago, we got to watch one of the shuttles launch. Discovery. (A perfect name, don't you think?)

Darn, the name doesn't show up very well on this closer shot of the piggyback ride, so I'll have to tell ya ... it's the (ta-DA!) Discovery.

Earlier this year, we watched the coverage on CNN of the retired Discovery being piggybacked to its new home near Washington, D.C.

And THAT'S where we went! To the Smithsonian Institute's Air & Space Museum at Dulles Airport. Discovery's new home!

Entrance to the museum

There's plenty of exciting things to see at this museum, but nothing, for me, matched the moment we caught the first dramatic sight of Discovery, and approached her, nose on.

Isn't she a beauty? We were able to get upclose and personal with her, close enough to touch, if we had reeeeeally really long arms. 

I took quite a few pics of the shuttle, but rather than show you all of them, let me show you just a few of the other neat things in that museum.

There were a BUNCH of vintage space age toys, most of them from the '50s and '60s.

How's about a flashy red plane that converts to an ugly red car?

The Spirit of Texas was the first helicopter to make an around the world flight. From September 1-30, 1982,  it covered 25 countries, 21 seas and oceans, and a total of 24,750 miles. 

I loved the eagle paint job on this plane. It's actually a Bearcat Conquest, and is the plane Darryl Greenamyer used to break a 30-year-old speed record in 1969. 

A Caudron G-4, a WWI fighter aircraft, and one of the oldest surviving bombers in the world.

This is one of my favorites, too... a circa 1912 biplane.

Know what these are?

They're examples of what's known as trench art. Art... made from munitions. The model biplane was made from an 8 mm cartridge. It would seem that, even in times of war, artistic expression demands an outlet.

So, there ya have it, just a taste of what we saw at that museum. You could say, that all in all, the day was full of...

HA!

So, what's YOUR favorite museum? Do you like aviation museums and air shows? In the near future, I'll tell you a story of the world's longest non-stop flight. (And I'm NOT talking about the time that little brat kicked the back of my seat for five hours straight. That just SEEMED like the world's longest flight.)

                              Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.