Friday, June 04, 2010

Smithsonian

Yesterday we decided to take advantage of one of the many wonderful free things to do in Washington DC. We joined throngs of school children and tourists and spent the day exploring the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History. It was a wonderful day. Dennis was interested in the exhibit on Charles Darwin and the Origins of Man. The school children hurried through the exhibit in search of the dinosaur bones while we lingered and pondered what we were seeing. It was a fascinating, well-done exhibit. We ate lunch in the museum's cafe and discussed Darwin's theory of evolution. The evidence is compelling that all life is related. The image below is Darwin's Tree of Life, showing his explanation of the descent of man from a common ancestor.

After lunch we headed off to the Imax theater and saw a 3-D movie about dinosaurs. Exploring the dinosaur bones after the movie made the bones more interesting. This world of ours is very, very old, about 4,600,000,000 years.

We did not have time to go upstairs to see the Hope Diamond, the moon rocks or the Egyptian room. We'll save that for another day.

At the end of the day our grown up granddaughter, who works in one of DC's big office buildings met us for dinner at Union Station. I was amazed listening to this young lady tell about her day as an accountant. When did our grand-baby grow up into this beautiful, articulate young woman?

Yesterday was a ten.

2 comments:

Miss Healthypants said...

I'm glad you enjoyed the museum. :)

And FYI--I read your blog at lunch today, and then later there was a question on Jeopardy with the answer being "the Hope Diamond"--and I got it right, thanks to you! *smiles*

Middle Child said...

The Egyptian room is always my first - and have trouble leaving it - in our Melbourne National museum - no doubt smaller but pretty amazing