Day 6 - Smithsonian

We didn't get up too early, but we did want to make it in pretty quickly to see as much of the museums as we could. We made it to the mall area about 9:00 and realized that the museums didn't open until 10:00. We were able to walk through a few garden areas that displayed different plants and ecosystems. D.C. is such that you can be just walking along and come upon some sort of exhibit. We went ahead and went to the entrance of the Natural History Museum and had a seat out front. Various vendors were just arriving and setting up their trailers for a full day of capitalism. It was fun watching them open and set up everything getting ready for the crowds. The museum finally opened and we went inside. We walked around and

saw many things and without going into great detail, I will just say that it was too big to see it all. After about 2 hours, we were getting pretty hungry and at first I was thinking about finding a sandwich shop somewhere before going on to the next destination, but decided that it would be easier and more fun to just get a hot dog from the street vendor that we had watched set up. So that's what we did. For a hot dog, they were pretty good, but anything would have tasted good by that time.

After we ate, it was time to take in the American History Museum. Once again, the place was huge and full of amazing things. We got to see the flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the Star Spangled Banner, the Hope diamond and Abraham Lincoln's top hat. At about 3 o'clock we were pretty tired and decided to head back to the campground for some relaxation. That ended up being really nice because we were able to walk around the campground and take some time to rest because our time at D.C. was not over yet.