Sunday in the country with Udvar-Hazy

November 1st, 2010 · No Comments

The Air and Space Museum was always my favorite of the Smithsonian museums, and since the Udvar-Hazy Center, located near Dulles Airport, opened a few year ago, I’ve wanted to pay a visit. It’s always tempting you when you land there, but it’s never quite convenient enough for a visit. This time Scott had his car and we had a free morning ahead of us, so we wound our way around and over the crowds running the Marine Corps Marathon and made our way out to Chantilly.

Udvar-Hazy Center

The center is massive and impressive, maybe one of the biggest single spaces I’ve ever been in. Everywhere you look, there’s something interesting hanging from the ceiling. I appreciated the Corsair, my favorite plane as a child, hanging right in the entrance, and was overwhelmed by the sight of a Concorde and a space shuttle in the same place. We spent three hours there, looking at every last piece on display, and had a great time.

Udvar-Hazy Center

More photos from the museum here.

Scott dropped me off at the Metro and I headed back into town. I stopped at the hotel and then decided to head to Capitol Hill for lunch at Ted’s Bulletin, recommended by friends in town for the rally. It wasn’t really lunch, as it was already three in the afternoon, but I really enjoyed it: I can’t remember a better chicken noodle soup and milkshake.

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I had just enough time to catch the last tour through Ford’s Theater, a place I remembered well from our first trip to D.C. when I was six. The house where Lincoln died across the street was closed, so I didn’t have to revisit the bloody pillow on which his head lay, something that always gave me the creeps. The museum had been redone since my last visit, the story of this trip, and was very informative. I found the theater itself less so, a result of its refurbishment into a working theater. It seemed to have lost its haunting, haunted quality, probably a good thing for putting on a play.

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I met up with Aimee’s cousins Nell and Lauren for dinner, some tasty pizza and excellent pumpkin ale at Paradiso near Dupont Circle. It was great to see them and fun to catch up and hear about their lives in D.C. After dinner, I browsed for books at Second Story and then walked back to the hotel, happy and exhausted after another long day.

Tags: Miscellany · Photos · Travel