Day 2: Castle Tour & Smithsonian Museums

We have been Smithsonian members for several years, and one of the membership perks (since admission is free to the museums) is a free behind-the-scenes tour of the Smithsonian Castle.

As an aside, I would highly recommend Smithsonian membership to anyone. You get a fascinating monthly magazine and also help to support one of America's premier institutions. This magazine was one of the main reasons we decided to vacation in DC!

Our tour was at 9:30, but we got there a bit early which allowed us to explore the nearby gardens.
It might be a bit hard to read the sign, but these roses were called "Princess Alice." We didn't find any "Prince Brian" flowers.

Brian took a lot of flower pictures, and even some bug pictures when we ran into pollinators. I won't bore you with putting them all on here! These pink roses were among my favorites:
We sat on a bench and watched some birds taking a bath:

Brian, waiting, excited for our tour to start!
The Castle is mostly used as a visitors' information center for their other facilities, although there is also information about the founding of the Smithsonian. Additionally, James Smithson's crypt is here, as are the Institution's administrative offices.

They also have a large room where each local museum has a couple of display cases to summarize the type of artifacts housed there.

With building being built later than their European counterparts, there weren't many opportunities to pose next to tiny doors!

Here is an interior view of the room where each museum displays a summary of their contents. Although from the inside the room looks as though it were part of a cathedral (rose window, arches, etc.), our guide said that there was never any religious component in the design.I really liked this sign on the elevator, so of course I took a picture:We went into the room where board meetings are held. In addition to several other people, the Vice President of the US, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, 3 senators, and 3 representatives are on the board. We were told that we were sitting in the same chairs these people use in their meetings.

The walls were filled with portraits of the Smithsonian's past secretaries. What an amazing amount of history!

I forget which illustrious historical American figure owned this piece of furniture, but our guide told us that it used to be a piano! The string were strung vertically. Later this was used as a desk, and it's currently used as a display.After our behind-the-scenes tour, we were hungry for lunch, so we ambled off. We came across the Old Post Office Pavilion. We had lunch at their food court (classy, I know) and then went up in the elevator which afforded a view of the city:After lunch, we wanted to go to the National Archives, where some of our country's most important documents are on display. The line was too long, however, so we decided to return another day...We continued on towards other Smithsonian museums, but first we saw these two people taking a picture in the middle of the road! Shortly after I took this picture, the light turned green and they were stuck in the middle of traffic.We went to the National Air and Space Museum, which is apparently the most-visited Washington museum. They have small slices of moon rock on display that you can touch.

Brian was hoping that touching the moon rock might give him superpowers, but it does not appear that that happened. But it's only been a week.There was a replica of an astronaut's bed which we both tried out.

And then I pretended to have to use the spacecraft's facilities. Luckily I didn't really have to go as it was non-functional!

There were scales where you could weigh yourself and see what you weigh on Earth and what you'd weigh on the moon or some of the planets. If anyone wants to do this without stepping on the scale, there's a great website here.

Brian confused some people when he exclaimed, "Yup! 754 pounds!" when exiting the moon scale (it was really around 30 pounds).

After all of that excitement, we headed over to the National Portrait Gallery (another Smithsonian museum) and saw many amazing pieces of art.

The museum has a fantastic courtyard where we relaxed for a few minutes. Or maybe for a bit longer than that.

We had been on our feet for most of the day, and it was a struggle to get going again! Our stomachs finally provided the impetus to leave.

There weren't any restaurants around that were calling to us, so we stopped at the grocery store and purchased a few things for dinner. This time, checking out only took about 10 minutes, but there were only 2 people in front of us. I guess we shouldn't have been in such a hurry on vacation but we were hungry and just wanted to get home!