The campgrounds had all the connections for water, sewer, electricity we needed. No WIFI but great cell phone reception. Smart of us to have unlimited voice and data from Freedom Mobile, even in the USA.
We spent most of Tuesday at the Air and Space Museum at Dulles. One word describes it...AWESOME!
We joined in on a guided tour by one of the docents who really knew his stuff. He had some great insights that we would never have gotten walking around on our own.
There are 5 main attractions here. The Space Shuttle Discovery, SR-71 Spyplane, B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay, Boeing 707 prototype, and a Concord SST.
The Space Shuttle is very impressive and even shows the singes of the heat of re-entering the atmosphere. It was always my impression that the heat was caused by the friction with air molecules. Not so. It was due to the massive pressure build-up on the surface. Remember your physics? Compressing a gas will result in increasing its temperature.
The docent related a neat story of the Apollo 11 command module. This mission was in big trouble because there was an problem in the command module and the crew had to return from the moon in the mission module. Before re-entry, they transferred back to the command module that did not have environmental controls. It was very cold inside. After successfully landing in the ocean, the rescue crew opened the hatch and it was still very cold inside, even after the blazing heat of re-entry.
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| The plane with Boeing is the prototype of the 707. |
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| The Enola Gay is the airplane that dropped the A-bomb on Hiroshima |
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| Two historic planes...the 707 prototype and the Concord. |
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| B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay |
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| Aerobatics and ultralights |
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| The first flying car. None have ever been successful. |
On Wednesday we decided to head into Washington to see the Smithsonian museums. The best way is to drive to the nearest Metro station in Vienna Virginia. For $20 we rode in and returned, parking included. On the drive back to the campground, it was a 45+ minute drive in the heavy traffic. We are so glad not to have driven into the city!
We visited the Aviation and Space museum downtown. This is the original, before the collection became just to big to house everything. Although it is nice by many standards, it was bit of a letdown after the Dulles museum. There are still many interesting displays, even the Kitty Hawk, and war birds. We were done in a couple of hours and headed to the Museum of Natural History.
Boring. We trailed around for a couple of hours, not impressed by anything. We never left the main floor and maybe there was something there to see but we were pooped by now and decided to head for the hills.
The next day was wasted (rainy) doing laundry in Manassas and shopping. We found a pressure washer at Home Depot of $80. The exact same thing in Ontario is Cdn$188. I kid you not!
Sunday. We headed for home as the weather was going to be nice and warm for the next few days and we hate unloading the motorhome in the cold and rain. We stayed overnight at a WalMart in Edinboro PA, having dinner in town at a nice restaurant. The weather was a very pleasant 25C.
We were home by 2 PM the next day after crossing at Fort Erie with very minimal delay.
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