The Hope Diamond, Dinosaurs, and nail polish remover

Hope:
Today's highlights: The Hope Diamond, Dinosaurs, and nail polish remover!!!

This morning we skipped breakfast with the intention of finding a neat brunch location in the city. We ended up with a hot dog meal outside of the National Museum of Natural History. Twas quite delightful. Before our hot dog brunch we walked our way to the Washington Monument. I think Nate will like telling you about one of the peculiarities we found out about that monument earlier this week.

Our biggest goals for the Natural History Museum were to see the dinosaurs for Nate and the Hope Diamond, of course, for me. The diamond was quite unimpressive. I'm all about expectations and they do a good job of promoting the bling outside of the museum by using huge, poster-sized likenesses to peek your interest. When you get in and find it is no bigger than an Oreo, it leaves much to be desired. It was basically lame, but I was glad to see it nonetheless. One sparkle of interest that I had was dashed at the gift shop. We found the coolest shirt with the word "Hope" in diamonds on the top. The "o" was taken place by the big, blue diamond. We both decided I needed to get one and at $18, I thought that was a reasonable bargain for such a nifty find. I found the XL and sadly found that it would have fit me better when I was 8, rather than almost 28. Sad day. I did get a picture with it, but it's just not the same.

We also took in an IMAX presentation, "Dinosaurs: The Giants of Patagonia." It was in 3D. Rad! Need I say more? Maybe Nate will.

My last wonder of the day was that I finally found some nail polish remover and cotton balls at an unlikely spot. My lovely French tip nail job has been chipping since the wedding day. The White Out-touch-up job has since been wearing off and worsening daily. I reached my breaking point, as it were, and set out to remove the job once and for all. That lacquer that they put on the top is hard to remove. But, alas, it is now all gone. Yeah for Bed, Bath, and Beyond. They really are beyond!

Nate:

We were both highly appreciative of the slower pace today. We have been running pretty hard, and it usually means that we run out of gas by about 5:00 or so. This isn't usually a big deal, since we typically stay in for the night to unwind, but regardless, today was much more low-key.

The Washington Monument is, without a doubt, the least interesting monument we have seen thus far. It looks really iconic, and craning your neck to look at the top is pretty cool, but really, short of going to the top, it's a big spire in the middle of a park. Funny story: the monument was actually left incomplete for about 20 years after funding ran out. Just after the Civil War, it was completed, with stone from the same quarry. However, that stone was now coming from deeper in the earth, and it was a slightly different color. The result is that the Washington Monument is two-tone. Basically, the symbol of one of our greatest Americans ever has a farmer's tan.

The Natural History Museum was neat, but as with yesterday, we hit critical mass about two hours in. It was very exciting to see dinosaur skeletons, even though some of the dinosaur exhibits are very out of date, and look like they came from the mid-70's. How could I tell? The T-rexes in the dioramas were all walking upright, with their tales dragging on the ground. Palentologists now believe that the Tyrannosaurus walked with the tail as balance, and the legs as a pivot point. I would think that the Smithsonian would change this to reflect it, but money is probably tight.

Surprisingly interesting was the gemstone exhibit, which was amazing in its variety. I was really impressed by the sheer number of variations that crystals can adopt, and they were all really cool. The IMAX movie was also really neat, as Hope mentioned. My biggest beef was that it was short and surface. I personally could have done for something closer to an hour, as opposed to 22 minutes. That may just be me though.

Hope neglected to say that we also saw the Hirschhorn Sculpture Garden, which is across the mall from the Natural History Museum. It was nice, and since the weather was much more pleasant today (about 15 degrees cooler than yesterday), the stroll was nice. We also took the Metro up towards the National Portrait Gallery, and spent a gift-card someone gave us to Chipotle. This was right on the edge of Chinatown, so it was kind of strange to see all the signs with Chinese on them. Still, a good day.

Tomorrow will likely contain the National Zoo, although that is subject to change. We left it open so that we could play it by ear. Good night, all.