Sept. 10: DC recap part 3 – We had a great time at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. It was like a wonderland for Andrew. The only problem was that he was so excited, we raced through it at nearly top speed. We’ll have to go back! Pictures of our visit are in the gallery.
Andrew hasn’t ever been to a museum where there were taxidermic dioramas or big dino bones. This museum had both – in spades. And we spent a good hour in their discovery room, where Andrew got some hands-on time with artifacts.
As Andrew raced from the mammals hall to the dino hall, he was often shouting out what he was seeing. “An okapi! There’s an antelope! Look at the HIPPO! It’s a…what do you call it? Pangolin!” I was trying to get pictures of him, but he was moving fast. His pointer finger was permanently extended, pointing out all the wonders around him.
After we’d explored the public part of the museum, Heather – a venerable Smithsonian staffer – took us on a back-stage tour of the Smithsonian’s bird collections. Heather’s adviser, Helen James, took me on a tour of some of the 640,000 bird specimens in an amazing library of stuffed bird bodies. We looked at the birds that Heather is studying in her research, and we walked by cases of birds collected by luminaries such as Darwin, Wallace, Audubon, and Teddy Roosevelt. It was really cool.
After a yummy lunch at the museum cafeteria, we headed home. But I’m glad to have friends living in the DC area…because I know we’ll want to come back! What a great museum for my little boy.