To America We Go

We set off to find the centre of Washington under clear, blue skies. I know the Garmin tagline is "You'd be lost without it", sometimes I'm lost with it. After going through the same tunnel three times as the GPS was insisting that I took a particular route and by the time the "off-route, recalculating..." process was ready I'd missed the next turn. I can't emphasise enough that the highways in this country are many and complicated and busy, so it is quite a challenge to ride the bike, watch the GPS and navigate through the traffic. Eventually I switched it off and headed for the Capitol dome which I occasionally got a glimpse of on the skyline.

The National Mall is a long, open, grassy stretch from the Capitol to the Washington Monument, around which you will find many of the sights that Washington is famous for. We found a parking and set off on foot to explore the area.

Foremost on my list of things to do was to visit as much of the Smithsonian Institution as possible. The Smithsonian is a complex of 19 museums and numerous research facilities. Some are in New York, but the administration offices located in "The Castle" and many of the museums are centred around the mall. Admission to all the museums is free.


We explored the castle which contained many fascinating items of American History and then moved on to, my favourite, the National Air and Space Museum. This is a feast for techies as it documents, with many of the original items, the great achievements that have been made during man's quest to fly and reach the stars.


At lunch time we headed to the National Museum of the American Indian where they have a canteen that serves native fare from North and South America.


We the crossed over to the other side of the mall and entered the National Museum of Natural History. As the nation's largest research museum, it is a treasure trove of more than 126 million natural and cultural objects.


Then we moved to the next building: the National Museum of American History. This is filled with exhibits that explore America's social, cultural, scientific and technological history.




Did you know that there were 23 million cars in the USA in 1930? No wonder the roads here are developed in such a mind-blowing way.

We had just finished one wing on one floor when it was after 5:30pm and the museum was closing. We'll probably go back and continue tomorrow, see the White House, the holocaust museum, and possibly also try to find the Air and Space Museum's expansion near the airport that is said to contain many more aircraft exhibits.