Museums, monuments and memorabilia

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We set off on last Thursday by firstly having a quick visit to the Manassas/Bull Run Battlefield. This was the site of two major Civil War battles, including the first of the war in 1861. For that battle soldiers on both sides, Union and Confederate were basically untrained, unready and had no idea what to expect. In fact the general populous had no idea either and many congressmen and citizens packed picnics and followed the Union army out to the battlefield for what they thought would be a very colourful show, over in double quick time.

Wethinks they got a lot more colour than anticipated but it was probably much more crimson than they expected. 900 men died on those fields that day and all notion that the Civil War would be over in days were quickly dashed.

Our target that day was to do one of the big museums before we even reached Washington - the Stephen F Udvar-Hazy museum, a branch of the Smithsonian Air and Space but about 40 miles out to the west of the city. We had a small problem finding the correct entry and found ourselves at a service road entrance, held up by a policeman. There was an oversized load about to leave and we couldn't turn until that had gone past. As we waited a large load loader came out on the back of which was a 20 foot white metal cube. And there was a two car police escort too.

By the time we got to the correct entrance, about 30 minutes later, our worst fears were confirmed. We asked at information and established that the box contained the Apollo 11 capsule which had just left for the Houston museum at the start of a 2 year / 4 stop tour of the US!!! Oh well......

This branch of the Air and Space Museum is essentially two intersecting hangers containing larger items from the collection, one hanger mostly space and one air. So on display, amongst hundreds of items are:

Space Shuttle Discovery, Apollo 11 mobile quarantine facility - essentially a modified Airstream caravan - Gemini capsule heat shields, Neil Armstong's moon walk helmet and gloves, and cabinet after cabinet of various space related paraphernalia. And they also had the original space craft model that was used in the Close Encounters film.

In the air hanger was the Enola Gay - the bomber that dropped the A-bomb on Hiroshima - a Concorde, Gossamer Albatross (the first human powered flight over the Channel), Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer, and various capsules and harnesses used by those who set different 'drop' records including the ultimate from around 130,000 feet. Along, of course, with dozens of other aircraft.

We then pressed on to Washington, and our hostel, but a journey that should have taken about 90 minutes took us around 4 hours, so much traffic backing up for miles!

Washington - The National Mall is a stretch of open ground at the heart of Washington DC, connecting Capitol Hill in the east, roughly, to the Lincoln Memorial 3 miles to the west, is about a quarter mile across and has a spur going north to the White House. And imagine, if you will, Hyde Park, stretch out to those 3 miles and then all of London's museums and key tourist places arranged around the outside - British Museum, V and A, Science, Natural History, Houses of Parliament, British Library, Archives , Tate, Tate Modern and National Galleries, Cenataph, all the statues around the city etc etc.

That, effectively is what Washington has done in its centre.

As we said previously our 5 days in Washington were to be very museum heavy. One target for our museum visits was the most recent addition, the Museum of African American History. Regrettably we only found out recently that tickets for a month are issued 3 months in advance, go in minutes, and we were well past the issue date for now. However, they issue a limited number of on the day tickets, on the Web, at 06:30 each day. Paul drew the short straw, and anyway he's best at these things, and he was able to get 2 tickets for that day, Friday. But no cost involved as all the national museums are free.

Our hostel was just across the road from a direct Metro into town so the car was parked up for 5 days and not used. We arrived in town to find that our metro exit bought us up at the entrance to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial, 2 curving 304 foot long marble walls carved with the names of over 20,000 officers lost in the line of duty back to the first known death in 1791. 6 were killed by Billy the Kid! 72 were lost on 9/11. New names are added every spring. What was 'interesting' to us was the presence of a wreath with "police lives matter" pinned to it that had disappeared by the end of the trip, ie after the Las Vegas shootings.

Just across from there we also found the Museum of Buildings. We had little time, but saw the cavernous inside with its record height-setting marble columns and the detailed carved frieze around the outside depicting 1355 figures from the Union army of the Civil War. When built it was the largest brick building in the world.

We then briefly went to the National Archives, to see the Declaration of Independence (1776), the US Constitution (1787) and the Bill of Rights. The way in is via two bronze doors, 39 feet high, 10 feet wide and 11 inches thick. At the end of the day the documents, in their cases, desend into a fortified underground basement!

There were also displays relating to many sets of national records including the US Air Force investigation into UFO's, official investigations into the Kent State Student Shooting, Challenger Disaster, Watergate and sinking of the Titanic, Nuremberg Trials .....

A coffee and cake in the park pavilion led to us having RED squirrels feeding whilst sitting on out laps ?

As we said, the Museum of African American History and Culture is the newest and currently most popular of the museums. We spent 5 hours there, we couldnt get tickets for earlier than 12 noon entry, and didn't cover it all. We spent most of the time in the three basement levels doing the walk from 'Slavery & Freedom' (1400 to 1877), 'Defending Freedom, Defining Freedom: The Era of Segregation ( 1876-1978), and 'A Changing America: 1968 and beyond'. The entry to these galleries is via a large, compulsory, glass sided lift the shafts walls of which have dates on them to emphasise the stepback In time.

Incredible displays, artefacts, information, closing several circles for us going back to the early days of this trip to Memphis, the Civil Rights Museum and various marker points. The Emmett Till - young lad who was brutally killed - memorial room could be harrowing containing his original casket, recovered when he was exhumed for DNA analysis. There was also an original records ledger showing that Attorney John P Waddill was hired to secure Solomon Northrupp's (12 Years A Slave) freedom.

That evening we went to a Major League baseball match, watching Washington Nationals win 6 runs to 1.

Saturday, first pass-by was the White House. Then it was 7+ hours at the Museum of American History, a museum that we were only able to walk through from back door to front last time 20 years ago. They store here basically anything that isn't able to be categorised into the other individual museums. So, for example, the Original Stars and Stripes flag that inspired the American Anthem 'Star Spangled Banner', Thomas Jefferson's writing desk, Julia Child's kitchen, George Washington's uniform, Abe Lincoln top hat, Benjamin Franklin walking stick, table and chairs used at Appomattox for the signing of the end of the Civil War, Graham Bell telephone, Thomas Edison light bulb. Unfortunately the red shoes that Dorothy wore in Wizard of Oz were off display for conservation.

For the evening we had ticket 's for Ford's Theatre, where Abe was assassinated. They have a museum inside and as ticket holders for that evening's performance we were entitled to visit. The museum naturally covers Abe's visit to Washington and that fateful night. They even have the gun that did it! and a blood stained pillow.

The performance for our night there was Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, and a very excellent production it was too, though the theatre suffers from poor sight lines.

Sunday - Air and Space Museum, and another full, open to close, 10am to 5.30pm day. We were barely through the door and Paul was off at speed to a display case in the entrance which he spotted from 100 paces which contained.......the ORIGINAL model used for Star Trek, recently fully restored and back on display. Other highlights were the Wright Flyer, the Wright Brothers first plane to make powered flight, Apollo Command Module from a Skylab mission, Buzz Aldrin suit, the waistcoat ground mission contoller Gene Kranz wore during the Apollo 13 mission, Spirit of St Louis, Charles Lindeburgh's plane for his cross Atlantic flight, a touchable piece of moon rock, and an original build lunar module which didn't actually fly. Paul even found a display panel which gave links for a guided tour in Klingon.

Monday - day 5 of museums! - we wake up to news of the largest mass shooting of recent times in the US, 55 dead later to rise to 58. Our location for the day was the Newseum, a pay for entry museum dedicated to freedom of the press and the First Ammendment. Another superb 6 hours. Pip was particularly taken by a gallery in which there were dimly lit drawers containing original newspapers, showing the front pages, from key stories in history going back centuries. Gunpowder Plot, execution of King Charles I, Armada Defeat, Beatles in USA, 9/11, .... Pip nearly photographed all of them individually. Other artefacts included the original Watergate door, the largest number , 6, of Berlin Wall panels outside of Germany, FBI section containing artefacts from the Unabomber and the Shoe Bomber.

A 9/11 gallery was centered around a twisted part of the broadcast antenna that was atop one of the towers, and recovered personal items too.

There were also 15 film/video galleries each focused on specific topics, and kept up to date. The Comedians section featured stories that were barely a couple of days old.

We allowed time at the end of the afternoon to walk to some of the monuments at the other end of the Mall, towards the Lincoln Memorial. Some we had seen previously - the Korean War, the Vietnam War; some were new. The WWII memorial has a style that looks old but was built in 2007.

A stunning memorial to Martin Luther King shows him carved in a block of stone extracted from within a larger block further back on the plot, which references one of his speeches. It was dedicated on 28 August 2011, the 48th anniversary of his I Have A Dream sperch to the crowds at the March to Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The 28 foot statue is a granite Stone of Hope, extracted from the Mountain of Despair, leaving a gateway which represents the struggle for equality.

After seeing these various monuments we were nicely timed to watch the changing colours on the Washington Monument reflected into the water in front of the steps at the Lincoln Memorial.

Tuesday - really getting museum weary by now. We started off at Arlington National Cemetery which was lovely to walk around in the morning mists and sunshine before it got too warm. Arlington is the final resting place for 400,000 active service members, veterans and their families dating back to the Civil War when the Union authorities took over the grounds of General E Lee - Confederate! - house. It is still a very active cemetery , we heard at least 3 volleys followed by the Last Post whilst we were there.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is guarded by an immaculately turned out guard who appeared to almost glide across his route.

There is now a memorial, built of scottish stone, to the PanAm flight which exploded over Lockerbie. Of course we took a route past JFK's tomb with its eternal flame.

We then quick stepped it out by taxi to the other end of the Mall for our timed visit to the House of Congress, USA's parliament building. Quite aside from the workings of government the building itself is quite fascinating. They provide frequent guided tours, and at the end we were able to bag ourselves a ticket to actually go into the Senate chamber. Regrettably they were on lunch break, but you wouldn't have known it from the security check we had to go through to get in! ?

This gave us a short afternoon to get into the Museum of the American Indian, a very good showcase of both North and South American native tribes with some fascinating exhibits. Nor did it hold back from some detailed displays on various failed treaties that had been signed between American Indians and the US Government over the years, most, if not all, had been broken by the US.

And after a nice meal it was back to our hostel ready to leave in the morning. And that makes this blog well, or even far long enough for now.

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