Smithsonian Air and Space Museum

When we got to the Reston office on the Monday morning, there was no one there we were supposed to meet. Luckily a random person in the office took pity on us and let us in and took us for lunch (there are very few places to eat without driving). 

So we left early and when to the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy centre, near Dulles airport, which is another part of the Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian. And it was worth it. The place is huge and full of planes etc. And they have a real shuttle, the Discovery. (I had a complete geek out.)

Shuttle!

So many planes. 

It was difficult to believe that some of the planes and helicopters actually flew. They seemed a little flimsy.

Tiny.

But the best bit was the shuttle. We saw it fro many different angles working our way through until we got the space part.

Bud stunt place.

They seem have forgotten the tail

I think you put the plane on

tiny helicopter.

A flying military platform (it wasn't very successful).

Helicopter - well, blades and a seat.

Plane to you detect and use as a car. I want one.

Literally called Tiny.

Balloon capsule

Demi's favourite - The black bird. 

Blackbird, the stealth plane

Plane used to defend atPearl Harbour

Cute.

One of the galleries is devoted to space with the shuttle (yes I took more photos) and other space bits.

Discovery

Apollo 11 mock-up

Rocket.

Quarantine module for the astronauts after returning from the moon

Our last stop, before the gift shop, was to go up the tower and get a view of the airport. Which was fine, but we have a closer better view from out office windows at Heathrow.

That night, we went out to an amazing restaurant for dinner. It was mainly a winery so all the meals were created to pair perfectly with a wine. It was good and we had more than enough to take home left overs for the next night.

Roanoke and cake

After another great Friday night at the Monkey House with some amazing live music, on Saturday, I went with Steve and Eva into Roanoke to visit a few of the museums. We started off with the Taubman art gallery which is frankly just odd. I have been there once before and can't say I enjoyed it any more this time. The exhibits are odd. I decided not to take photos of the main exhibit. They were really creepy (with human heads on animals, blood, etc) and really not suitable for a 4 yr old!

Weird morphed redoes climbing on other teddies

The nicest thing there.

They did have a children's play area which was ok.

Being a butterfly

Making noise

Putting on a show.

 We didn't spend very long in the Taubman. Most of it was really not good for little eyes and pretty boring to be honest. After lunch at a Lebanese restaurant (the best thing about Roanoke is the wider variety of restaurants than in Blacksburg), we went to the Science museum in the square. It was way too expensive for what you got. It seemed aimed at too old an audience inside compared to the advertisements. We were not very impressed.

Checking out minerals

turbulence

 One of the best things was a planetarium globe. It displayed lots of different things, even the WMAP results. But it didn't explain any of them! Fail.

planetarium

There was also a sensory area where you could dig for fossils. Eva spent some time there, mainly throwing the rubber. Then we sat in the reading area going through books while Steve tried (and failed) to take a nap.

Digging for fossils

 After the museums and an ice-cream we headed back to Blacksburg. They dropped me off home where I took a well deserved nap! Children are lots of fun but exhausting. They came over to mine later that evening for dinner and Eva and I baked a blue Frozen cake. Eva was great mixing everything together. And we decorated it with sparkly icing! It was very pretty and blue and tasty.

Our frozen cake!

She was happy with the cake. Honest!

We were going to watch Frozen to go with our Frozen cake. But Eva changed her mind and we watched Despicable Me 2 instead. A fun evening to end a great day!
Today I spent the day working, so not nearly as much fun but necessary. :-(

Griffith Observatory

On Tuesday night, Rachel and I went out to Griffith Observatory to see the telescope and the sunset. We managed to pick the one fully cloudy day since we got here so far.

View from the Observatory

Rachel overlooking Hollywood

The infamous sign

 The Observatory, based in Griffith park, is very pretty ad art deco. I loved the architecture.

Griffith observatory.

Griffith park and LA

The dome, overlooking the city

 Apparently this is the worlds most looked through telescope and I think they do open it up on some nights. Obviously not that night though.

12-inch Zeiss refracting telescope

Posing by the dome

There was also a rotating periscope looking thing. We had no idea what it was as there were no signs. But had fun photographing ourselves in its mirror.

Can you see me?

The park at the Observatory is very pretty though it would have looked a lot nicer in the sun! (It actually rained here on Monday. Apparently it never rains in Pasadena and one person described it as a sign of the approaching apocalypse. My rain making power is unstoppable!)

Observartory

View of the grounds from the top of the dome.

There was also a rather random statue to James Dean. Apparently he filmed a lot of "Rebel without a Cause" on the Observatory grounds and shortly after it became a very popular spot to film at.

James Dean

 We also had fun inside the main building.

Thoughtful discussions with Einstein

Yes. yes. Very interesting

 I was really impressed with the displays. And super excited that in the planets area they had kept Pluto! One of the most popular activities were the scales which measures your weight on the different planets.

Fat on jupiter

Much prefer my weight on Pluto.

Rings of saturn

The main building was art deco inside too and the ceiling was obviously painted in an era of style, before astronomy budget cuts.

ceiling of the main building

 They also fired the Tesla coil which is always fun!

Tesla coil

 We did get to catch the sunset. Unfortunately this was as good as it got. We are planning on trying to catch the sunset over the see and hoping for better weather.

Sunset. Sort of.

But the view out of LA was really cool. You only really see how big it is when lit up.

LA at night 

The observatory

 Back at the flat, we had a late dinner of wine and some amazing cheese while watching Criminal Minds. We have some better wine but we are going to savor that on the weekend. The only bad point was when we tried to open a second bottle (as I had used most of the first cooking the night before). We have a rubbish corkscrew whig requires sheer muscle to get the cork out. And it didn't budget! So I need to buy a better corkscrew!

Cheese, wine, chocolate and raspberries for dinner! Yummy!