Washington DC - Real World Walker

This is very long post. I hope you enjoy it.


Amtrak's Acela - My Mom gave my Dad, me and my brother train tickets to Washington DC on Amtrak's Acela. So on Saturday, January 12, 2008 we all met up at Philadelphia's 30th Street Station and got on the train!

All Aboard!!


Union Station, Washington DC - It was a lovely sunny day and the train ride was oh-so-very-smooth. We arrived at Washington DC's Union Station five minutes early!


Inside the Station - The station was recently renovated to the tune of 140 million dollars and is spectacular inside (my camera could not do it justice).


View from the Smithsonian Metro station Stop - Looking South
We took the Metro (the Washington DC subway) to the Smithsonian.


View from the Smithsonian Metro station Stop - Looking North
The Mall is about 2 miles from end to end. The Real World Walker will have some serious walking to do.


The Museum of Natural History - The home of the Hope Diamond, Dinosaur bones, and fossils galore.


The Jefferson Memorial - South of the Washington Monument on the Tidal Basin. These trees are the famous Japanese Cherry trees that provide spectacular pink and white blossoms in the spring.


Vietnam War Memorial - the black wall in the distance has 58,000 names of US service people that died during the Vietnam War engraved on it. The names appear in random order since they are listed in order the service person's date and time of death. This memorial is very evocative. Designed by a Chinese-American girl (21 years old) whose mother escaped oppressive Communist China, it is well worth walking along in respectful silence.


Air and Space Museum - Since the Museum of American History was closed for renovations, we went to the Air and Space Museum. Luckily for us, some of the exhibits from the American History Museum were on display at the Air and Space Museum.


Archie Bunker's Chair - Seinfeld's Fluffy Shirt, and Mr. Roger's Sweater.


Signpost from M.A.S.H. - the eagle-eyed Real World Walker noticed that Seoul is on the pole twice.


R2D2 - I couldn't get a good picture, but R2 was standing in front of a small part of Eniac, the first computer. The small part of Eniac took up an entire wall.


C3P0 - Of course, what is R2D2 without 3CP0? It was hard to believe looking at these two, that these are actually costumes inside which actors played the role of sophisticated robots.


The Airplanes! - Yes! there were airplanes! and space ships, and rockets, and moon rocks too. Every significant airplane you can think of, is "in there". Lindbergh's Spirit of Saint Louis, Amelia Earhart's cross USA plane, the Gossamer Condor, Chuck Yeager's X-1 sound barrier buster, the X-15, Skylab, the lunar lander... gosh the list goes on and on.

I could have stayed there for days, but eventually it was time to leave.


Popcorn and the cast of Hitchcock's "The Birds" - Elbowing my way in past all the sparrows, the hungry walker got a bag of popcorn and started walking his way back to Union Station.


Somewhere along the way to the train - an impressive building wouldn't you say?


Back in Philadelphia - We waited for the commuter train that would take us back home. These trains aren't as "Oh Wow" as the Acela, but they are nearly as old as the Real World Walker and continue to rack up the miles too.


Ut Oh - What have we here? Two Orange Coneheads. I overheard them saying,

"Well Delores, I'm excited about taking this trip to Cleveland"

"Oh Harold! We missed the train!"

"Oh dear".