The Peanut Chronicle: New Years

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

New Years

We have developed a tradition of going to Smithsonian museums on New Years Day. This originally began 3 years ago when we learned that parking was free in D.C. on New Years. At that point we had been wanting to take Nicholas in but thought that adding Metro trips on both ends of the museum would be too much given how little he still was. And it was a fabulous trip, partly because of close free parking, but mostly because of the low traffic in the museum. See the entry here: http://peanutchronicle.blogspot.com/2011/01/air-and-space.html

And then we happened to be in D.C. on New Years again last year and so went back (no blog entry, but pictures here: https://picasaweb.google.com/103033220833760597415/2013January?authuser=0&feat=directlink. (Apparently we didn't go the year in between, given that I can't find any pictures in the blog archive.) This year when we were talking about New Years (and happened to be in MD again) we discussed doing the same thing, but honestly I am getting bored of Air and Space and Natural History and even Nicholas remembers them well year-to-year, but Nicholas isn't quite old enough to be interested in the history museums or monuments in D.C.

So instead this year we drove out to the Dulles annex of Air and Space. So cool! There aren't many exhibit-like things, so in an apples-to-apples comparison the one on the mall is still a much better museum, but this was really cool to go to once. And perfect for the manic-mood that Nicholas was in because you could just walk around being awed by all the big planes without having to stop and really read or stand still. Also perfect for taking a little baby to because it was basically walking laps around a huge aircraft hanger.

The most exciting part for everyone was seeing the Discovery space shuttle. Joe was like a little kid over it! And Nicholas had just done a space unit in school, so was really excited to see something that had actually been to space.