[DopeyGirl]

We didn’t really have a plan, so we just started walking “wherever” and ended up at the US Navy Memorial.
















On the right is Mike’s Navy “rating” (AE = Aviation Electrician’s Mate) and on the left is what MINE was when I was in the Navy! (AD = Aviation Machinist’s Mate . . . aka Aviation engine mechanic. )

We looked around outside, then headed inside. We were the only people inside the museum part of the memorial, so we were able to see everything fairly quickly and without a ton of people standing in front of us. We finished up there between 4:20-4:30 and headed to find a Starbucks. Just a note about that for a second . . . it amazes me how many people have no problems drinking piping hot coffee when it is 90-something degrees out! We got a Mocha Frappuccino (Mike), a Blended Lemonade (me) and an apple juice . . . the LAST thing we were thinking about was a HOT drink on a HOT day.

ANYHOW . . . once we’d had our drinks, we headed down to the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery. We finished off our time there by doing a kids’ scavenger hunt in the Luce Foundation Center for American Art gallery. It was nice to have something for Emilie to do since she was starting in on her “This is BOOOOOORRRRRRRING!” stuff. She really enjoyed doing the scavenger hunt though, and when she successfully completed it, she was given her choice of 3 SAAM badges to wear on her shirt.




Ah . . . contemporary art. You just don’t see enough paintings containing bacon on clothespins, drill bits and windows these days.


Sorry to our west coast friends . . . there was nowhere I really could have stood that would have enabled me to get the entire sculpture in the frame. BUT this was a really awesome sculpture . . . the US, made out of neon and televisions. It’s called “Electronic Superhighway”. The TVs all played something relating to each state . . . Missouri had “Meet Me in St. Louis”, Kansas had “The Wizard of Oz”, Oklahoma had “Oklahoma”, Idaho had a potato farming video . . . it was really cool! Here’s a link to the SI page about it: SAAM :: Interact


Emilie doing part of the scavenger hunt


CONTINUED IN NEXT POST . . .