Sunday April 17th 2016

It was another beautiful day today. The temperature has gone up about 5 degrees each day since Friday. Today it reached 75 degrees.

Washington Monument

I got down to the mall in time for the 10am opening of the museums. I started with the National Museum of Natural History. This facility has been totally remodeled since my last visit. I recognized very few of the exhibits. The great elephant in the main hall was still greeting visitors and there were still cases upon cases of stuffed birds of the DC area.

Elephant exhibit in Natural History Museum rotunda

I’m sure there were other artifacts that I’ve seen before, but the way they are displayed has been totally updated. In the past an attempt was made to display an artifact in a mock up of its natural setting. Now the focus is on information and education. If it requires grouping exhibits in unnatural ways for comparison or contrast, education takes priority. The number of interactive exhibits has been increased immensely.

The museum is still a confusing mess of rooms and passage ways that often requires you to double back to get to things you want to see. It’s designed for people to wander and learn not to see everything in the least amount of time. When the museum is as heavily visited as it was today, I want to just get in and get out. A day with fewer people would be needed for me to linger over displays.

The exhibit hall on Minerals and Gems was my favorite. I would like to know more about Minerals and Gems. There is huge display of crystals, minerals, and gems as well as some jewels. The Hope Diamond gets its own room and guard. If you’re into diamonds, I’d say it’s impressive.

Hope Diamond through display case glass

The crowds chased me out of the Natural History museum after about 3 hours. My next objective was to get some culture. I went to the National Gallery of Art. I wandered through gallery after gallery of paintings and sculpture. Most of the galleries I went through contained panting from the 1500s through about 1800. I know very little about art, but I recognized some of the artist names and I’d even heard of a few of the paintings. There were people studying the details of the paintings and making sketches.

National Gallery of Art rotunda fountain with Mercury

I realized after I left the National Gallery of Art that I didn’t tour a large section of the main floor. If I recall from previous visits that section contains the works of more recent artists like the impressionists. I had enough with the sections of the museum I toured.

President Taft’s first presidential Limo. Displayed in a Glass Box on the Mall

I was back at my RV home by 3PM to eat a late lunch early dinner. The previous two days of touring I at lunch in one of the museums, but the Cafe in the Gallery of Art was to fancy for my tastes. So ends my touring of Washington DC for this trip.