Museums continued

 Sunday, Jan 4 -- Museums continued

My first Sunday I went to a few other museums: Natural History Museum, Air & Space, and National Gallery Sculpture Garden. The Smithsonian museums only have a small portion of their permanent collection on display at any one time, and we were told that the remainder of their collections aren't stored anywhere in or under the museums, but in pods in the surrounding areas.

I thought the museums did a great job of having something for everyone--interest and age-level. The Natural History exhibit of my youth--the exhibition case stuffed with fifty birds from the region is still on display downstairs, but it is no longer the norm. In the Natural History museum, a lot of the displays reminded me of zoo exhibits with the appropriate habitat surrounding the specimens on view. They also pared down the number of examples within exhibits. For example: here is a photo of the insects.

 Each of those circles had a small selection of insects. The circular windows lit up for a short period of time drawing attention to 1-3 circles at a time.




Selfie with the T-Rex















I thought this was cool. "Once There Were Billions": the museums display of U.S. birds that are now extinct. They included stuffed examples and old natural history books to drive home the point.

I also enjoyed the gem collection. Yes, the Hope diamond was cool, but my favorite is this butterfly broach, which had slices of semi-precious stones, and was encrusted with jewels. It looked sort of earthy rather than sparkly. It was gorgeous! 

Here's my favorite photo from the wildlife photographer of the year exhibition:

The winter plantings around the Smithsonian museums are awesome. Notice the kale--they have lots of different varieties, and they looked beautiful amidst the other plants and bushes.

Here is my favorite sculpture in the National Gallery sculpture garden--so cool:

The Federal Triangle building is amazing--love the architecture:

Sunset...