Annster's Domain: September 2011

Friday, September 30, 2011

My Week With Obama - Friday - Part 2

Got this perfect shot of the Washington Monument on my walk to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum...

And also this one of the Capital Building...it was such a beautiful day!!!

Here I am at the front door of the National Air and Space Museum. Let me preface the rest of this post by saying that I really miss Brian Frankhouser!!! He is one of my best friends from college on and he is one of those people that we shared EVERYTHING with each other! He had a massive heart attack along in his apartment one night and died instantly - he was only 39 and I miss him dearly!! He went to Cal Univ with me and then transfered to Penn State where he got his Bachelors in Chemistry and also Bachelors in Aerospace Engineering. He worked for about 10 years in aerospace and then quit his job and went back to school to be a dentist...he graduated and started practicing dentistry and that is when he died...he is so horribly missed!! All that to say - he would have LOVED this museum!!!

At the entrance of the museum

Camo plane

Medel of Honor for the Navy

Aircraft carrier

Explanation of above carrier

Pretty awesome looking aircraft!!!!

another angle

Skylab chair

Skylab exercise bike

Skylab shower

kitchen area at skylab

Aft end of Saturn 5

Tomahawk

Arrangement of the planets around Earth

One of the first telescopes - this thing was IMMENSE!!!!

These were outside - they were sooo cool - there was one for each plant...love these little details...

Here is a closeup of Earth's post

A little closer of the Capital building - this is walking back to my hotel to catch my flight home

And on last shot of the Washington Monument - a little further away...

How cool is this?!?!?

All in all, I enjoyed my week and cannot wait to get HOME!!!

My Week With Obama - Friday - Part 1

So after training was over on Friday - I had about three hours to kill until the shuttle was picking me up at the hotel so I checked out of my room - checked my bags at the hotel - and went exploring a few museums...first up was the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History...

This cool artistic sculpture was along my way as I was walking to the museum...

The sign for the Museum

And another sign...

Big prehistoric fishy...

And another...

Whale

T-Rex (remember him from A Night at the Museum)???

Prehistoric bug...

Triceratops

Another dinosaur...

And another

And another...

This was a prehistoric "grazer"

AWESOME!

Yes please!!! Two!!!

Some kind of scorpion thingy....ick!

This was pretty awesome! Apparently they feed a tarrantula two or three times a day for visitors to watch and I got lucky and hit it at the right time...this is where he was telling us all about the spider...BIG SPIDER!!!

And this is right after he threw in the "volunteer" (as he called him) cricket....there is NO way that cricket knew what he was volunteering for - the spider immediately jumped and sprang on top of him and he was GONE!!!! HA!

BIG fishy!!!! This is the bones of a sailfish!

Can't remember this guys name but he was on an episode of River Monsters...he is BIG!!!!!!!!!

A giant sea turtle's bone structure

A squirrel monkey for JoJo (my niece loves monkeys) - although she probably prefers alive and with hair and flesh - HA!

A sloth - I know a few of these... :-)

A cool looking dog!!

A type of hog

Koala - what a cutie!

Loved this display...this is a vampire bat and it shows how they used to bite people...crawling under the covers and biting their feet bottoms...they suck so littel blood and cause so little pain that most people did not even know they got bite!