Off to the Postal Museum

By pure chance today was the unveiling of Marvin Gaye's  postage stamp. First off there was a line at the security check, which is unusual for the postal Museum. Secondly the whole first floor was chock-full of people doing various things and they had a DJ and people were moving and shaking their things. We grooved to some Marvin Gaye tunes and then went downstairs. Downstairs we saw three airplanes one train car for different trucks mail trucks and ATVs, several plastic horses that all represented the ways that the mail has been delivered in the past. There was a section that discussed Ted Kaczynski, once again! He certainly has a lot of representation here in DC.  They also had a display of the trail from New York to Boston back in colonial times when the first postal service was created.

Yeah it's Marvin Gaye's stamp day!

Getting your groove on

Cooper spine is no longer under his control

Intro to the postal Museum

Cooper is petting Owney. Owney was the most famous and most traveled dog in the late 1800s. You should definitely look up his information.

A carriage is yet another way of delivering the mail

Riding shotgun in the big rig

Various badges for postal workers

Nice Satchel in case anybody is wondering what I want for Christmas

Cooper is sorting mail

He is definitely not concerned about any fragile items inside the mail

It's interesting that the kingsroad ended up being US1 after all those two hundred years

Not only the dream of immigrants but pretty much how I dream about America

The mannequins were little creepy so he could barely stay inside that carriage

If you look closely you can see the hook that they used to grab the mail pouch from below the plane

Yeah U-da-bomber

This is the Postal Inspector crew that was there to apprehend of the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski

Chicken and Waffles for lunch

After seeing all those rocks and minerals we just had to get something to eat. We walked five blocks or so and found a place called Cedar as in cedar plank. It was a very nice atmosphere and the food was great. Leslie got a burger I got a steak and cheese sandwich and Cooper got chicken and waffles. He had been talking about chicken and waffles for a day or so so it was quite appropriate that it was a selection for his lunch.

Yummy lunch!

We three eat the tastiest of lunch 

The Natural History Museum at the Smithsonian

We walked across the mall and got to the main entrance and had to stand in line of about 30 people. We went through security and then duct in quickly into the mammals  Xzibit.  They had a special exhibit on narwhals and had the skull of a 2 tusked narwhal which is very very rare.  There was a wide range of  mammals skeletons and taxidermy . We then made a beeline for the minerals which is up on the second floor.  Cooper had been studying minerals and so that was a great place to start. The exhibit begins with meteorites of various forms and then moves on to volcanism and how minerals are created. Then it went on to how they are mind and where they're found and finished up with a dazzling array of examples. 

The welcome elephant

We must get an app so that we can make wise decisions as for our directions

Ready to set off into the museum

In the mammals of course they were lions tigers and bears

A very detailed sculpture from the Inuit people

A narwhal Up on the ceiling

The two tusked narwhal skull

Finally I find some Jade

And a very fine Green Jade it is

Granite with circularly shaped inclusions

Gneiss with a oddly shaped inclusion

A  faulted piece of granite

A very elaborately shaped Crystal

This is a type of iron

This gold nugget weighs over 6 lb

Gold found within a large pyrite matrix Crystal

An incredibly bright opal

All the minerals are arranged in the Hues of the rainbow

This loggerhead could have had Cooper for a snack

Our first foray into the Smithsonian

As we came from the Earlington Cemetery side we started our Smithsonian tour at the castle. We zipped over to the Sackler/Freer Gallery looking for Jade figurines I had seen 30 years ago. The last time you were in DC the gallery was closed so we could not see it. And alas I couldn't see it here again. The folks at the gallery thought perhaps it was a temporary exhibit also many decades ago. We got some water a bag of chips and made her way across the mall to the Natural History Museum

A welcoming blast of color

At the entrance to the castle

A ceremonial Jade chisel and a jade face

A carved Jade face

This is the largest Jade disc in the world and it's odd notched pattern makes this unique

Arlington National Cemetery

It was storming last night but we slept soundly. We got up and took a Lyft over to Arlington National Cemetery. The line seemed long at the time but it moved fairly quickly and we were inside after a few short minutes.  As we were leaving however we saw what a real line was! There was an option for a tram tour but we decided just to walk and get a more personal tour that way.  We saw the graves of JFK and Jackie. We saw the Eternal Flame, RFK and and Joseph Kennedy jr. Up on the hill Robert E Lee's old plantation was being renovated. We strolled around a little bit more but decided that the walk to the Unknown Soldier was too long considering how many other attractions we still had planned.  There were numerous gentlemen and ladies in uniform. There were some veterans that were also in uniform and several large groups of school kids. I was really impressed at the large number of International visitors.

Dressed and ready to go by 9:30

We passed the Pentagon on our way over to the cemetery

A sculpture that you see just as you enter

I'm not sure if they are veterans or docents

Hard to wrap your mind around the enormity of 400,000 dead at this Cemetery alone

We were intrigued as to the meaning of the different types of crosses found on the headstones.

As far as the eye can see

Many folks in this group are sneezing too

JFK'S memorial

Jackie's 

It was windy so the eternal flame was really dancing

Whoosh

Eternal no matter the level of the wind

The Washington monument off in the distance

Service members

Not McLane but close

An entire Greek temple 

The precision and the geometry of it is impressive

I believe this is a dogwood and the flower petals were flowing off of it like snowflakes

With all of the pollinating plants there was a lot of sneezing going on

This is Robert E Lee's Homestead

Respect

Respectful and quiet contemplation