Quick Trip to Washington DC

What trip to Washington is complete without a picture of the White House?
We took a hop on / hop off tour on Friday and had beautiful weather for taking pictures even tho it was 90 and humid (Uugh!)  We had great narrators on the tour and learned lots of little facts about our nation's capital that have quickly disappeared from our memories.

In addition to the White House we went got off at the Lincoln Memorial stop and visited it as well as the Korea and Vietnam memorials.  The Vietnam one was especially moving.

We also spent considerable time at the Air and Space Museum on the Mall where I even got to ride a Space shuttle ride simulator that took me to the International Space Station and back. It was a bit corny, but still very enjoyable.

On Saturday came a true highlight and that was seeing the Space Shuttle Discovery up close and personal at the new Air and Space "attic" near the Dullas airport. If you are into airplanes and flight you really need to visit this place!  It's a very large hanger with airplanes and other flight vehicles hanging everywhere.
Seeing the Discovery was amazing!  You can even see all the burn marks on the tiles from its last re-entry into the atmosphere.    Very cool!
Also near it are various other shuttle flight equipment like one of the  SpaceLab modules that flew on 9 shuttle missions.

They have an Air France Concorde on the floor, the Enola Gay, an original Boeing 707, a full set of all the military airplanes you heard about from World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, including helicopters and jets.
In addition to that are first time vehicles like the Global Flier that flew around the wold nonstop.

They even had one of my favorites - a Blackbird SR-71 spy plane - sitting on the floor. It is amazing that this Mach 3+ plane was designed using slide rules and flew faster than anything else until the recent Scramjets started flying.

All in all, it was a very good day that was topped off with a super WFMA Folk Music Concert sponsored by the World Folk Music Association featuring Mary's favorite singer, Mack Bailey, along with Tom Paxton, Noel Paul Stookey, Buskin & Batteau, and Christine Lavin   We got to meet Mack and other other performers before the concert.  The concert itself was classic folk music, containing several updated protest songs and other classic references.  Each singer had 30 minutes which made for a very enjoyable concert.

Today we will be attending church at the National Cathedral, then heading north to Baltimore to attend a much smaller scale concert at Baldwin's Station to head Mack sing with Bill Danoff and his son, Owen.  We are looking forward to that concert with great anticipation.