d.c.

2-5. march

trav is at johns hopkins and ed and dave are at georgetown so i went to baltimore and d.c. to visit them. these pictures though are only of d.c.


note dude with big gun



washington monument and national mall from the steps of the capitol




once more



so trav and i went to the smithsonian national air and space museum where there exists a truly stupefying collection of aeronautics history. its like a candy factory for engineers.




this (single) picture has in it (from left to right) the spirit of st. louis that charles lindbergh piloted for the first non-stop solo transatlantic flight in 1927, SpaceShipOne, which mike melvill piloted into space for the first private space flight on june 21, 2004, and the X-1, which chuck yeager broke the sound barrier with in 1947.




breitling orbiter - first circumnavigation of the globe in 1999




its a bad picture, but then its a model of the original wright flyer which flew in 1903.



the aft end of a saturn 5 rocket. this totally looses in scale without someone standing beside it. i could easily stand on my shoulders in there. each rocket had five of these.



friendship 7 put john glenn in space as the first american on feb 20, 1962.




apollo 11, the command module in which michael collins orbited while neil armstrong and buzz aldrin landed on the moon on july 20, 1969. impossible to get without people crowded around it.




a tomahawk missle




a few icbms



a v2 rocket which the germans used to bomb london. next to it is a model of skylab



ok, out of the museum. these are the burghers of calais by rodin in the smithsonian sculpture garden



clearly a model of the deathstar



trav




the east wing of the national gallery with its henry moore sculpture out front. the resemblance between the louvre and the east wing should be clear. they are both I.M Pei. this one in 1978, and the louvre rennovation in 1989.







it looks like the building was built around the calder. not from this angle though.























a bit moore













the dome of the capitol. most of my picture inside the capitol building are pretty crappy.



the first supreme court.



the jefferson memorial

to my eternal frustration, the battery in my camera died here, and i couldnt take anymore pictures though trav and i continued on to the lincoln and vietnam memorials. the lincoln memorial is really very impressive. together with the vietnam memorial which is very near it, they are the best and most moving memorials i have ever visited. it was dark by the time we got to the vietnam memorial and there was only dim lighting and candles so the effect was certainly multiplied. maybe its better, because pictures wouldnt have done either of them justice.