Air and Space Museum

We spent Sunday afternoon at one of our favorite places – the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum near Dulles Airport.  My dad was visiting for the weekend, and he'd only been to the one in DC, so it was a perfect choice.

As much as I enjoy all of the displays, my favorite area of the museum is dedicated to space exploration.  My family is proud to be a bunch of space nerds.  We have attended a total of 17 Space Camp programs between the 6 of us; C and I experienced 5 Shuttle launches in person; we stand outside and watch the ISS fly overhead whenever possible; and we read books about space, watch movies about space, and think astronauts are rock stars.  I cry whenever I see a launch, including today when we were watching a video at the museum.  So when we arrived at the museum, we made a beeline for Discovery.

I was in heaven.  Discovery is of particular interest to me because of its importance in the history of the Shuttle program.  After the Challenger disaster on January 28, 1986, Discovery was the "Return to Flight" vehicle in September 1988.  Additionally, after the tragedy of Columbia on February 1, 2003, Discovery was the vehicle used for the "Return to Flight" mission in July 2005.

On that 2005 flight, Eileen Collins, one of my personal heroes, was the Shuttle Commander for the mission, and she was the first astronaut to fly the orbiter in the 360-degree pitch maneuver to allow the crew on the ISS to photograph the belly of the orbiter to identify any potentially compromised areas.  In short, Eileen Collins is incredible. 

When Discovery was flown to DC on a Boeing 747 in April 2012, I saw it fly past from my classroom window.  It was amazing.

For these and countless other reasons, I absolutely love this orbiter. Discovery led the way back into space after two unthinkable events caused the Shuttle program to screech to a halt.  Such a promise of hope after very dark days.

I could have spent every moment until closing staring at and admiring Discovery, but we eventually moved on because the rest of the museum is pretty impressive, too!

Happy Tails to you!

Luray Caverns

Despite living less than two hours from Luray Caverns for the past dozen years, we'd never been there before!

I don't know why we waited so long to visit!  First of all, I love the words  "stalactite" and "stalagmite."  Such great words!  I wasn't exactly sure what to expect, but it was actually quite similar to Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota, which we visited many moons ago.  Just beautiful! 

However, I thought the admission/tour was a little pricey ($26.00 per person...really?!?) and frankly, our tour guide was terrible.  In her introduction, she spoke far too quickly and was very difficult to understand.  I really can't share a single thing I learned because there were at least forty people on the same tour, and we did not hear a word the tour guide said.  We stayed at the back of the pack because we dawdled along to take photos, so we had no hope of hearing her.  Had there not been SO many people on our tour, we might have been able to hear what she was saying, but no such luck.  Even if we had been close enough to her, there was no guarantee we'd have understood anything she said based on how incoherent she was during her introduction.

Oh, well!  We let nature speak for itself!

Enjoy the photos!

Happy Tails to you!