Day #3 in DC: Visiting Todd and Torie + Air & Space Museum
[Photos from 01 August 2015, text and layout from 24 September 2015. August has made it into existence!]
We didn’t publicize that we were going to be in DC (the internet spawns bad habits) so we probably missed meeting up with some friends that were/could have been there at the same time as us. Now we know better.
But, with my limited brain functions, I did remember to contact the few people I remembered lived in DC. Among them were Todd and Torie, who we met in California. (Todd and Hrefna started EE grad school at Stanford at the same time. T&T’s wedding remains one of the few weddings we actually made it to during the wedding bonanza.).
Since our Icelandic hosts were busy with their other friends on some tourist tour or other, we decided to drive to T&T’s and spend the day perusing their town. We also skipped on over to the Smithsonian Air and Space museum at Dulles at the very end of the day. (34 images total)
All of us at the Air and Space Museum surrounded by cool stuff!
Back to the beginning of the day… Near-empty highways are fun! Slightly nerve wracking were signs for toll roads which we didn’t know were optional, only that they only took cash and not cards, and we had no cash. Luckily we managed to avoid the toll roads, so all went well!
We arrived at T&T’s before lunch, and got busy catching up!
T&T’s neighborhood/town is suffering from McMansionitis. That’s when builders buy small or modest houses, tear them down, and build a huge cookie-cutter monstrosity instead. T&T have one McMansion growing opposite them, and another next door.
The big excitement of the morning was waiting for the farm co-op truck to arrive. T&T host a distribution spot for their neighborhood, and this morning the truck was late!
Driver hauling a pallet of produce, straight from the farm, up the driveway.
Since the truck was so late, there was already a crowd of people there to pick up their produce.
Finnur being helpful while I, admittedly, was not.
A short moment later, all the boxes were stacked, and Torie could take inventory, before the vultures descended on their pray (that they’d already paid for, but still!).
Meanwhile, Bjarki was playing with the twins in the spacious backyard.
They got along well, with Bjarki surprising all with his English proficiency.
The back of the house. It’s apparently been added to a few times since it was originally built. I guess people weren’t in the habit of tearing down perfectly fine things to start anew until recently.
After all the farm-stuff had been taken care off, we set off to walk downtown.
Adoooorable backyard sheds!
Downtown USA.
Our destination was a Greek place, where we ate lunch.
Can’t go wrong with chicken nuggets! And it helps when the nuggets are actually chicken too.
More walking around downtown, with Anna offering up her services as hand-holder.
A very red stop!
Parents lurking in the shade.
Emma up on the train.
Can you spot the kid?
On the way back we stopped at a frozen custard place. The custard was yummy!
The kids gobbling theirs down.
At some point during the walk back to T&T’s, the kids gave up, and refused to go further. We decided that two adults would go and fetch the cars, while they kids got to play on a playground nearby.
Right before Finnur and Torie took off to fetch the cars.
We made it to the Air and Space museum around four pm. Look at those beauties!
The decommissioned space shuttle Discovery being iconic.
Discovery looking more like a cartoon dog with a funny hat. Sorry Discovery, I couldn’t resist!
Always impressive!
There were a lot of things to look at!
More of the tail section.
Kids in motion. Anna took it upon herself to babysit the twins, and they disappeared off to somewhere, while Bjarki moaned about none of the planes being open so he could climb inside.
One last parting shot. I only realized after looking at the images, that I didn’t take a single image of the left and right sections of the museum, where there were a gazillion and one plane. Maybe next time!
With that, we hurried back to our car, because we had to be at home base before a certain time to babysit while Elsa and Þráinn went to see The Book of Mormon musical. We made it just in time!