More DC

I have a lot of pictures, mostly of random nature.

Random high school band playing in front of the World War II monument. I totally got choked up. I also cried at the Vietnam Wall. Oh man, that one was sad. Seeing the flowers, notes, and obituaries broke my heart. My dad was in the Army during Vietnam (he didn't go, he was training at the tail end of it) and it made me even more thankful.

We did a lot of fun things. We went to the Museum of Natural History which has all kinds of fun dinosaur bones ( a la Night at the Museum) and various other amazing things. I touched a meteorite that was over a billion years old. A BILLION. It was super fun for a museum.

 The Hope Diamond. Hard to get a good picture of b/c it is under a mile of glass and rotates. M wouldn't buy it for me. Cheapskate.

I also went to the Smithsonian art museum by myself. It was amazing. I mean, yes, there were hundreds of landscapes of the French and English countryside by people I have never heard of. But there was quite a bit of Renaissance art including the only da Vinci painting in the US. I saw so many famous paintings and sculptures. I don't really have pictures b/c I think amateur pictures of art are lame. It isn't going to capture the piece. So I tried to just absorb. Picasso, Renoir, Rembrandt, Matisse, Monet, Van Gogh, etc. It was like being in history! I felt that way all week-like I was in history.

We also went to the zoo. Zoos are our thing. We go anytime we go to a new city. It was freeeezing, but we soldiered on. Apparently, it was too fricking cold for a bunch of the animals, too.

 

There is a huge line of these ropes going across several little islands of land across the zoo. They were out and walking across and playing for quite a long time. Luckily none pooped on me. I stayed out of the splash zone.

 The lions were great. There were about 5-6 cubs running around playing and the dad just looking bored. The cubs were so adorable--all wrasslin' and rolling and rough housing. The moms would come break it up and they would just start right back up.

I'm a fat panda. I like bamboo.

The Cherry Blossom Festival started our last weekend there. When M signed up, I was hoping they would be blooming while we were there. Yes, I'm a nerd. It had been pretty cold so I didn't think they would be very good. Happily, they were out quite a bit. They are mostly around the tidal basin of the Jefferson memorial and were beautiful!

Here are just a few of the like 100 pictures I took of flowers. 

So so many pictures of cherry blossoms. You're welcome.  This concludes all the pictures I took in DC. There are more with my actual face in another camera.