Day Three in D.C.

Day Three in D.C.

 

Today was a day full of adventure. We started out by stopping for coffee on the way to the Metro Station, then headed to the National Archives. At the security point for the National Archives, the man running the security was confusing and rude. I couldn’t understand him at first, and because of this he acted like we were completely stupid. He angrily told us that we had to shove our backpack into the same small bin as everything else, and couldn’t put it directly on the belt. Still, we didn’t let it ruin our time observing our Nation’s great documents.

Viewing the United States Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence was like travelling back in time. How great it is to be allowed to see those documents, instead of having them all locked away and preserved where no one can see them. I actually learned a lot of things about these documents that I didn’t know before, by reading several of the information boards that surrounded the documents. For instance, we learned that there were a few errors in the documents, including missing words, and these words had to be inserted above the lines of text. There are many interesting facts to be learned about our Nation’s documents. I do think that it would be nice if the rotunda of the National Archives would be a place where silence and respect would be observed, which is what we wrote in their comments book.

After spending quite a long time in the Archives building, we walked to the National Museum of the American Indian Museum just for lunch, on the recommendation by the hotel manager and a few other people. The food was definitely delicious and authentic!

From there, since by this time it was pretty late in the day, we decided to split our time between going back to the American History Museum and visiting the National Museum of Crime and Punishment. We had just enough time at the American History Museum to go through WWII, but unfortunately needed to leave the rest of our time for the Crime Museum, so left without seeing the rest of the wars that we hadn’t seen the other day. It wasn’t too big of a deal, though, since I was excited to see the Crime Museum.

By the time we finally figured out where the Crime Museum was located (we had to ask two policemen, who informed us that the museum is nothing to brag about- only a little store front), we only had an hour left before it closed. As we walked through the handcuff crowd controllers that led up to the main counter, I began to rethink things. I had been waiting to see this Museum, and I have always been interested in this sort of thing, but we only had an hour to go through it and the tickets weren’t free. Then, my Mom saw that on display up front was Ted Bundy’s car, and explained the horrible crimes he committed. I really wasn’t sure I wanted to go there after all. We debated whether or not to go in, and asked the man to tell us more about it. He made it sound interesting and said it wouldn’t be gross. I also recalled that it stated “family friendly” on an advertisement we saw, so thought we might as well go. He gave us senior and child tickets, which was very kind because it took the cost down.

The beginning of the museum was mainly forms of medieval torture, with genuine pieces that were used for punishment. I wasn’t up for reading about and seeing these unusual forms of torture, so we pretty much skipped this section.

 

The next areas were more on real life stories of criminals, including Bonnie and Clyde and Baby Face Nelson. Again, genuine things were displayed with these exhibits, including Bonnie and Clyde’s car, with smashed windows and full of bullet holes. These areas of the museum were hard to swallow. Reading about kidnappings and murders, and horrible, gruesome details of crimes was saddening and frightening. The authentic weapons and other things from criminals made things all the more real. As my Mom point out, there will always be evil on this earth.

 

The remaining areas of the museum were about unravelling cases and investigating crime scenes, and had we known how many areas there were in the museum, we probably would have devoted more time to these areas. With the low lighting, music, and sound effects to add to the whole picture, everything seemed somewhat disturbing. I was just thankful that I was able to sleep last night. Though, when I think about it today as we are on our train ride to Boston, I think I want to go back to the Crime Museum. They had some really fascinating details about some of the most famous crimes and criminals, and a section on criminals that aren’t exactly known for their intelligence. I’m sure it was mainly because we went to it at night that everything seemed more frightening.