Day 39 – Grant & Kate Do Museums

From - Washington
To - Washington
Via – 2 Museums
Miles driven – 0
Miles walked - 5

Today's Photos -

Yesterday I admitted that sometimes Im in awe of the places we visit because Ive seen them in the movies rather than because of their true significance to America. Picture then how excited we were to hear about a museum that has Judy Garlands Ruby red slippers from The Wizard of Oz and other movie memorabilia. So day 2 in Washington is not going to be spent seeing The Mall or Capital Hill we’re off to see the Wizard.

It turns out that the national Museum of American history isn’t just for movie buffs it also houses the flag that inspired the US national Anthem – the Star Spangled Banner. This flag was raised in Baltimore in 1812 after the US won a battle against good ole Britannia. The flag is a little tattered because of the battle or perhaps its age, another sign of its age is that it has just 15 stars but it’s absolutely huge and you can’t help but be impressed. Im going to guess it is 10ft tall and 18ft wide but Im rubbish at that kind of stuff so you can probably safely double that. Actually Ive since asked grant and apparently it was 50ft by 40ft. Other exhibits include a US army display which we skipped, a transport wing with cool cars from the 50s and a science display that was kinda dull. The showstopper for us were the hat that Abraham Lincoln was wearing when he was shot. Seeing that alone would’ve done for me, I think I’ve gotten a bit of a crush on him.
Here’s a run down on the iconic things we saw. Mohammed Alis boxing gloves and another pair from Rocky II (Grant wasn’t impressed because they were from the second movie, turns out they could get the hat that President Lincoln was shot in but the Gloves from the first Rocky movie are unobtainable). Kermit the frog and Oscar the grouch were sitting in one display case and the aforementioned red shoes were cool to see. In the book the shoes are silver but were changed to red for the movie as they looked better against the yellow brick road on screen. There was an early Barbie and G I Joe, a genuine C3PO outfit and the laptop used by Carrie in the Sex and the City TV series.

We’d spent a long time in a museum by our standards at this point and so we had a quick fight after which we needed some sustenance. The Elephant and Castle Pub is unsurprisingly an English pub and as we were on a carb loading mission all day we headed there for lunch. I had shepherds pie and Grant had a hot soup sandwich combo, both were average but did the job and we felt ready to hit our second museum.

We were thinking of doing something Washington related next and apparently there are more spies in Washington than anywhere else in the world so we headed to the International Spy Museum. I wasn’t really sure what to expect at this museum but it was well worth a visit. There are lots of examples of spy gadgets including cameras hidden in lighters and radio transmitters in shoes and cigarette packets. There are real life ex spies on videos explaining how their missions worked and mock ups of rooms with hidden cameras and bugs and secret tunnels. The video interviews were fascinating and covered everything from the CIA woman who discovered her colleague of 25 years was a double agent to photo’s of people hidden next to car engines trying to get pass the Berlin wall. There were games like trying to find the camp of a renegade army on satellite pictures and learning about the enigma machine. We didn’t realise how big the place was and so having started off reading every sign and pressing every button we basically jogged the last two sections as we were burning out a little and were worried about Molly being alone so long in our posh digs.

Our night time activities were intentionally tame as we have signed up from an Xmas themed 10k run tomorrow morning. It should be a nice way to see the city but Grant isn’t impressed by the bells we are supposed to wear on our shoes. That meant more carb loading so we went back into Georgetown and found a crappy Italian restaurant. All pastered up we headed to bed before 10pm – rock and roll huh?

Tomorrow – Yin & Yang our 10 k run and a posh Champagne brunch.