Smithsonian

One of my favorite places to visit while I was in DC was the Smithsonian Museum of American History. I went there twice. On my second trip, Daddy led me around the place. First, we went down the elevator (yay) to see a big map of the different voting machines used in the US. Daddy showed me where Washington, DC was. We stood on that spot and then walked all the way across the map to Walnut Creek, California, where I live. I quickly spotted my favorite state, Alaska, from our spot in California. What makes Alaska such a great state is that, on the Smithsonian map at least, it's big and it's yellow. Yellow is one of my favorite colors, along with green and orange.

Next, it was off to see the machine exhibit. I quickly found a big wood burning steam locomotive at the start of the exhibit. We went inside and looked at lots of different kinds of plows and tractors. I liked the gears on the tractor wheels. Daddy explained how the engine pushes a piston to turn the gears. After that, it was off to see the trains. There is an enormous green Pacific Class locomotive from Santa Cruz California in that exhibit. I wanted to climb up onto the trains and make them go, but unfortunately, the trains seems stuck in place at the Smithsonian.

We then went to look at the cars. There was a green Studebaker with a "statue" Mommy inside. Since my real Mommy has a green car too, I suggested that we kick the statue Mommy out and that real Mommy and real Aidan go for a ride. Finally, we came to my favorite exhibit in the whole place---a train car from the Chicago El. This is a great exhibit since you can climb inside the train and watch on a TV screen which projects the conductor and the other passengers riding the train. When the train is going, it kind of rumbles a little and lights flash outside the windows. I'd have been quite happy to stay there for the whole day, but Daddy said that the fifth stop was our station.

There were lots of other neat things to see here. We saw lots of engines in one exhibit. Daddy explained how steam engines, kerosene engines, and turbine engines work. I liked the up down motion of the piston and the round and round motion of the flywheel in Daddy's descriptions. We also saw a bunch of clocks. The gears inside the clocks are really neat as well. Finally, it was time to go.

I want to go back there as soon as I can. When we were back in California, I asked if we could go to this museum over the weekend. I was saddened to learn that it is more than 3000 miles away. That's far. I suggested that we drive there given the distance.