A Day at the Museums

Sometime in October, there was a notice in the Stuart-Hobson newsletter about special tickets to "Morning at the Museum" at the African American History Museum for some time in December. I was so excited about the prospect of getting tickets to the museum (which has been open for a year but is nearly impossible to get into) that I immediately signed up without looking at the fine print (or really not so fine print): turns out the program is designed for kids with sensory issues that can't handle museum crowds and so they allow them to attend before hours for a less overwhelming experience.

Still, free tickets to the Museum -- you can't really pass that up, even if it is under false pretenses. So we woke up semi-early on Sunday morning (after Owen's third performance of Willy Wonka and Nora's DCYO concert) headed downtown, searched for parking and eventually made it in.

The museum is pretty amazing. The suggested order is to start several stories below ground with exhibits on the slave trade and the Middle Passage and then progress upward through the Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights era. Owen tried to leverage his studies last year to act as curator, but there was so much more there than what any of us had covered in school. We were there for more than three hours and barely made a dent.

We went home, had lunch, the kids did some homework and Owen went to climbing before we packed up for dinner and headed to our second Smithsonian of the day.

The National Botanic Gardens has always been Owen's favorite place on the Mall, but it becomes all of ours during the holiday season when its annual miniature trains exhibit is on full display (and when, as members, we get to visit it at night). After such a sober morning experience, it was nice to end the day with a lighter, more festive cultural experience (especially with our friends, the Romans).

And of course, a photo bomb of the Capitol Christmas Tree.


(To see all the African American Museum pictures, click here.)
(To see all the Botanic Gardens pictures, click here.)