A Day at the Museum

Well, I tried to think of a funny title for Natural Museum but that's all I could come up with, before I had Visiting the Museum, real creative here. We are actually in Manassas, Virginia right now we didn't make it too far yesterday but I am a little back logged in pictures. Just to give you an idea of how backlogged, we went to Arlington Cemetary and Drew took 298 pictures. Anyway, two days ago we went to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum and I was so excited. I had convinced myself there was an aquarium there, I was a little wrong its actually down the street so we didn't even get to see it. But, the Natural History Museum was really exciting none the less and if I was about 10 years old it would be so cool I couldn't stand it. However, we did enjoy the dinasours and this REALLY COOL, did I tell you just how cool it was 3-D Imax movie. I can't remember if the Science Center has one or not but oh man, this was probably the best $8.50 I have ever spent! I wanted to try and take a picture through my 3-D glasses but the guards around the capital and inside the theater are kind of scary so I didn't want to risk anything. There was a really big Ocean exhibit that was pretty neat with a huge whale hanging from the ceiling, everything in that place is sized to scale or they have a little note letting you know how much smaller it really is. I have to admit it was all very amazing. We also found out that Night at the Museum 2 was just filmed at the Natural History Museum, so that should be fun when it comes out to know that I just saw a bunch of that stuff! Oh and while we were there we saw the Hope Diamond, going into it I thought it was going to be much larger than it truly is. Don't get me wrong for being a solid mass of diamond worth more than my life it is very nice sized! I also put up a picture of Drew in his 3-D glasses hehehe

Segwaying around D.C.

We have decided that eventually we are going to buy a segway! They are fabulous, they are electrically powered, and just a little lean here and a little lean there and you can go anywhere! We did two tours one during the day and one at night, the one at night although cold was definetly my favorite. I will modge podge pictures together and when we get home we will tell you a ton of information that we learned. The tours are 3 hours long, so you get to see a ton of the city, we cruised the mall and the museums and we saw the WWII memorial at night. It was so gorgeous! If you ever get a chance you have to see D.C. at night the capitol is so gorgeous! Oh, as we were passing the White House on our evening tour we heard all these helicoptors and the President was leaving, it was crazy loud! Needless to say we had a great time and Drew wants to open a City Segway Tour Company in St. Louis. If we do you guys all get free rides!

Hanging around town..

When we arrived in Philly we paid to do this bus tour that would allow us to jump on and off and stop at quite a few different places. We didn't use it as much as we had originally thought we would but it was an excellent way to get around the city. We swung by the Liberty Bell, its home is a big glass house so there wasn't a real reason to wait in a long line to be strip searched for a glance at a cracked bell. I know it means more that just a cracked bell but still. We also saw the oldest residence street in America, the houses are like 8 feet wide at most and the last one just sold for like $450,000. We also climbed the Rocky Steps at the art museum, while we were on the bottom some got out of a really nice white bentley and people at the top were scrimmaging to have a photo op but unfortunately we were unable to see who it was. We had a great time riding the bus and took a fabulous nap after it was all said and done.

Staying in the Big House

Okay so my ultimate goal to visiting Philly was going to the Eastern State Penetentiary. I saw it on Ghost Hunters which is my favorite show and was totally creeped out when the infrared detected, detected a body moving at the end of one of the cell blocks and we were able to see it. CRAZY! So in 1971 they shut down the penetentiary and closed it up and left it alone until 1991, they consider it a semi ruin and it so is. There were definite times that you could feel the creepyness and it often made my breathing feel very heavy. It was not all in my head. Al Capone, also stayed there for 10 months he was sentenced a year but got out early on good behavior. His room was at the beginning of one of the cells and for the time period was very nice, he had paintings on the wall, a lamp, a chair and a radio. I also am putting up a picture that may look funny but I took it from 2 doorways away. In the late 1700's they were creating a a synagogue and two of the leaders had painted this painting on the wall, it has not been touched by the archivers or anyone at the prison in over 300 years. It was absolutely unbelieveable.

Who's haunting who in Philly...

Ok, so the Ghost Tour, I don't personally recommend it was not nearly as spooky as I had hoped it would but none the less we had a good time. In this first brick building they say a face looks out, unfortunately we didn't see anything but I love the contrast of the fence against the brick. The next picture is of Benjamin Franklin's grave, people have thrown up to $3,000 dollars a year in pennies and the city puts it back to taking care of his grave. The cemetary was fun, not scary at all though. Drew has alot of "orb" picturesw but you can never know if it is dust or bugs or what! For the first picture, look on the back of a $100 bill and that is what you will see! Well, we are off to tour more of the city!

Times Square... woah baby!

I love the picture Drew took from the Empire State Building it is absolutely gorgeous, he had quite a few good ones. He is getting way better at not shaking the camera :-)! I love my head shot it really lets you see how many people there are about 20 feet in front of you! I also love the taxi cab picture, you get to witness ALL the taxi's, we read somewhere there are 13,000 taxi's! Everyone has to see Times Square at night there is nothing like it. Like Drew and everyone else says there is no other place like NYC!

Central Park from the back of a bike

So Drew and I got to Central Park yesterday and wandered around for about 10 seconds before we decided we needed a new plan. There are these fabulous little guys with bikes and buggies that are eager to take you around so we took him up on it and did the big tour which last's about an hour. We saw the Friend's couch, Imagine and John Lennon's house, William Shakespeare's statue and Christopher Columbus, our tour guide was a little hard to understand but we had a great time! A few of these Drew took, from the whole trip my favorite one of his is the fireman in the park.