Kicked out of the Smithsonian!

Saturday, March 7, 2015

I grew up going to museums. My favorite were the kind with not so much reading, but lots of hands on exhibits or interesting things to look at. But for some reason, I've kind of gotten away from going to them. I feel like I've lost interest in learning. I person doesn't go to Washington D.C., though, and not go to a museum. And Alyssa was eager to go. So on Saturday, after we had walked to the White House and the Washington Monument, we walked to the National Museum of American History for a late lunch. Afterward, we started to browse around. We found that there were three floors of very interesting things to look at. All of the displays were so well put together. And incredible amount of time and money had been put into them. One of the exhibits that I really enjoyed was on train travel, in the transportation section. The dioramas of the early days of trains reminded me of those of the Whitman massacre at the Marcus Whitman museum we used to visit when I was a child.

Diorama of a passenger train diner

When we had boarded the Capitol Limited Amtrak train, the conductor was pleased to see that we had paper tickets that had to be punched. He was explaining that each conductor used to have a uniquely shaped punch. He said most no longer carry them but he keeps one on him just in case. This was also explained in the display.

Train Conductors Kit

In light of our recent experience aboard the Capitol Limited with inconsiderate fellow passengers, I really enjoyed the reading of excerpts from a book by Charlotte Hawkins Brown regarding conduct while riding a train.

Train Etiquette

It wasn't long before I was engrossed in the displays and could see we'd be here a while. Thus, we went down to the cafeteria for a quick cup of coffee. Back upstairs, we spent time in the American Flag exhibit, where they had the actual flag on display that at one time flew over Fort McHenry. Once a massive 30' x 42', it is now only 30' x 34', with pieces of it being given away as souvenirs. One of the 15 stars had been gifted to someone also.  

After that we headed for the exhibit, “Americas Wars”. There we found displays of actual clothing and artifacts from the Civil War, Spanish-American war and others. All was laid out in a methodical, easy to understand format.

Suddenly, it seemed that we were surrounded by people in uniform, asking us to immediately move to the exit and leave the building. What was happening? It was closing time for the museum! We had been so absorbed by the interesting displays that we had forgotten to look at the time. Even though our days in DC were limited, we knew that we'd be coming back.