Enjoying Museums of our History

We spent two days seeing the American History and Natural History Museums of the Smithsonian. Walked and walked, but it was great. Curtis saw this add of a Fiat and started laughing. Those cars were around in Italy when he served his mission there in 1972-73 and they are just coming to America now. You can make the top a convertible so if you are over 6' (like our friend Larry Sampson!) you can drive with your head out of the top!

Here we are eating a terrific pizza and salad after we had just spent two hours in the International Spy Museum - which they don't let you take any pictures.  I was a little disappointed - hoping to find some secrets I didn't know about. But with all the James Bond movies and Alias type shows - I knew about it all. But it was fun to see. They did have the original Bond car on display that was in a more recent movie. 

 These are REAL Stratovarius made instruments. They were locked up tight in a glass case in a special room! I thought my son-in-law Nick would enjoy this photo! He plays the cello!

 These are Dorothy's ruby slippers! The original!

I thought they would look more sparkley and prettier than they were.

 This is a piece that fascinated me. It is a crimper for pleating material - like when you sew and and have to pleat blouses or skirts! Pioneers were truly crafty. If had one of those it would have saved me hours of pinning! They just heated up the cast iron in a fire and it was hot to pleat!

 In the Natural History Museum they had the original HOPE DIAMOND on display, in a special case that rotated in its own special room with guards every where.  It looks green here, but it actually was blue with lots of clear diamonds around it.  Sort of reminded me of the necklace from Titanic movie - large stone!

 This was in the mammal part of the museum. We kept discussing "The Night at the Museum" movie - only Curtis kept telling me .... "it was filmned in New York, the 2nd movie was filmed at the Smithsonian." I still pretended they could come alive at night!

 This was my favorite photo of the Natural History Museum. Some kind of animal (stuffed) - don't know what it was, but it was hilarious. Look at that face!!!

I finally convinced Curtis that this was "Dumb Dumb" statute! ha ha! He stood by it so we could show the grandkids.  We had a great time seeing all kinds of history.