Sunday, September 09, 2007
Sorry For The Delay--I'm In Washington DC!
The last few weeks have been a bit crazy and busy with visiting my sister and a new job. I'm in DC now for work for a few weeks and thankfully, have had a weekend off! I have also been blogging on Metroblogging DC while I'm here and so you can catch up with what I've seen there too.
Friday afternoon I walked over to the backside of the White House after work and saw this gentlemen. I appreciated his sentiment.
Here's his site. By the way, have I ever mentioned how much I LOATHE MySpace? Not the idea of it, not the popularity of it, but the ugly, lame, poorly designed layout that (I guess) people build so that you can't see or get a clear understanding of what is on anyone's page. Un-readable!
Back to DC:
Yesterday I spent the morning at the Air and Space Museum on the Mall. Just walking in the door and being presented with the first space capsules from Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions, then Chuck Yeager's X-1 was almost too much too soon! These are aircraft I've read and studied and watched movies about and here they are! Holy cow. I was blown away by how SMALL the original Mercury capsule was for John Glenn. (Brian would never have done very well in there.) They were truly "Spam in a Can". (Speaking of Mr. Yeager.)
The X-1 (aka "Glamorous Glennis") was fabulous. A man broke the speed of sound in that aircraft. People thought it couldn't be done. People thought you would die, instantly break up into a million pieces, etc etc. But of course not. Awesome. Plus the combination of guts and insanity to be a test pilot. The Wright Brothers were brave since people had barely even begun to understand what flight was all about. But flying is commonplace and you start building aircraft that may or may not stay together in conditions no one has ever been in before, that is what pushing the outside of the envelope is all about.
Here she is in action:
I enjoyed the WWII aircraft and history areas as well. I love going to airshows to see them still fly, nothing like seeing a P-51 Mustang zooming overhead. (Chuck flew Mustangs in WWII. No big surprise!) Here is a restored Mustang that flies in Texas:
Gorgeous!
There was more to the day...I'll get back to it later...stay tuned.
Friday afternoon I walked over to the backside of the White House after work and saw this gentlemen. I appreciated his sentiment.
Here's his site. By the way, have I ever mentioned how much I LOATHE MySpace? Not the idea of it, not the popularity of it, but the ugly, lame, poorly designed layout that (I guess) people build so that you can't see or get a clear understanding of what is on anyone's page. Un-readable!
Back to DC:
Yesterday I spent the morning at the Air and Space Museum on the Mall. Just walking in the door and being presented with the first space capsules from Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions, then Chuck Yeager's X-1 was almost too much too soon! These are aircraft I've read and studied and watched movies about and here they are! Holy cow. I was blown away by how SMALL the original Mercury capsule was for John Glenn. (Brian would never have done very well in there.) They were truly "Spam in a Can". (Speaking of Mr. Yeager.)
The X-1 (aka "Glamorous Glennis") was fabulous. A man broke the speed of sound in that aircraft. People thought it couldn't be done. People thought you would die, instantly break up into a million pieces, etc etc. But of course not. Awesome. Plus the combination of guts and insanity to be a test pilot. The Wright Brothers were brave since people had barely even begun to understand what flight was all about. But flying is commonplace and you start building aircraft that may or may not stay together in conditions no one has ever been in before, that is what pushing the outside of the envelope is all about.
Here she is in action:
I enjoyed the WWII aircraft and history areas as well. I love going to airshows to see them still fly, nothing like seeing a P-51 Mustang zooming overhead. (Chuck flew Mustangs in WWII. No big surprise!) Here is a restored Mustang that flies in Texas:
Gorgeous!
There was more to the day...I'll get back to it later...stay tuned.
Labels: airplanes, history, travel, Washington DC
Permalink posted by Julia @ 9/09/2007 06:20:00 AM 
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Did you go see "To Fly"-the IMAX movie at Air and Space? It's one of my fav. DC things. And you also must eat Ethiopian food while you're in Washington. Red Sea is the best known place but there are many.
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