The last stop we made on our winter break trip was the DC area. We spent some of our time there visiting and hanging out with M’s relatives, but we also had an opportunity to do some sightseeing. The great thing about Washington DC is how much you can see without ever paying an admission fee. All the Smithsonian museums and the monuments on the National Mall are free to visit, a pleasant change from the high prices of NYC.
Washington Monument on the National Mall
One of the Smithsonian institutions we visited was the National Zoological Park. It was a decent sized zoo, and the abnormally warm weather at the end of December meant that we actually saw a lot of animals out and about. We made sure to visit the panda exhibit because that was the whole point of visiting, and I was pretty impressed with their setup. We were able to see three different pandas, each with their own large habitat. It was amusing to see that despite the separation their behavior was largely the same - beeline towards food, snatch it up, then turn away from the throngs of tourists and start munching.
Panda at the National Zoo
Another big one we visited was the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. The exhibits were pretty nice, but it would have been nicer if we weren’t tripping over strollers every few steps. It’s one of the more family/kid oriented museums, so I guess it tends to be more crowded with families. We found some relative peace and quiet in the Special Exhibits section, which actually turned out to be our favorite exhibit in the museum. They were displaying some of the winning photos of a nature photography competition, and the photos were nothing short of breathtaking. We spent a good hour or so just walking around, looking at all the photos, before going back to the regular exhibits.
The special photography exhibit at the Museum of Natural History
We also made a brief stop at the National Portrait Gallery in downtown. It ended up being a lot bigger than we expected, and I would definitely recommend more than the one hour we had to look around. The building is divided into two halves - the actual portrait gallery section, and the more traditional art museum. We spent the bulk of our time in the portrait gallery, where the installations ranged from portrait paintings of historical figures to modern day photographs of the important people of today. I found the modern photos to be interesting, maybe because it’s not typical of what you would find in other museums. The top floor was dedicated to modern art, and also contained a lot of unique pieces worth seeing.
Modern art at the Portrait Gallery
The last museum we visited was the National Air and Space Museum. We ended up going to the one next to the Dulles airport instead of the one on the National Mall because apparently the Dulles one is bigger and has more actual planes. I can believe it - the museum was huge, with literally hundreds of planes and spacecraft on display. Some of the highlights included a full size blackbird and the space shuttle Discovery. The tour we joined ended up being a bit long - about 2 hours - but contained great information and hit on all the highlights and more.
Lots of planes at the Air and Space Museum
Next time I visit the DC area, I definitely want to explore some of the other Smithsonian museums. There are nineteen Smithsonian museums total, and I’ve only seen four so far (in recent memory), so there’s still much more to see. If possible, I’d also like to tour some of the federal government buildings. Many, such as the White House, can only be entered by securing reservations in advance. But for the price of $0, it’s something that shouldn’t be missed.
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