Smithsonian Edition Number 2

Day Deux and off we trot to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. We managed to get going earlier today, hurrah hurrah, because we actually made lunch this time! Wowie! At the Museum, we stopped for a bathroom break and I went to sit in a theatre to watch some interesting stuff about the ocean and how it affects our environment/how our environment affects it while the others were using the toilet. Lo and behold, when they came back out they proceeded to look

everywhere except for the door to their immediate right and then Mum yelled at me so I decided I would rather observe the museum by myself. I first went through the Ocean Animals exhibit where they have a Right Whale hanging from the roof, who is a replica of the real Right Whale named Pheonix. The board underneath told the story of Pheonix’s life and how she’s still out and about today after surviving being entangled in a fisherman’s net and escaping by herself. There was also a giant quid that

had been preserved so it wasn’t as long as it was in life but it’s one of the few that has ever been caught. Then I went through the deep sea and mid sea sections. Apparently you can use bioluminescence as a camouflage, which I didn’t know. The next exhibit was about the history of humankind, which was very similar to the exhibit in the Museum of Natural History in New York, if a bit more organized. I ran into the

rest of my family in the Mammals exhibit and we went for lunch. Afterwards, we split off again on the second floor. I went to see the Hope Diamond, one of the largest diamonds in the world and then walked through the rest of the gems and minerals section. I didn’t really read anything since it was mostly about elemental makeup and such but a lot of the cut gems were really pretty. Out on the balcony they have a temporary exhibit about elephants and their history so I walked through that

before looking in the mummies and dinosaurs exhibit. They actually have real mummies on display, two adults and one child as well as a bull. The dinosaur exhibit is made to look like a work in progress which is kind of cool because it kind of represents how we don’t really know very much about the Earth’s past. I had to go and meet up with the others after that and we all went to see another IMAX movie about dinosaurs. It was interesting but it wasn’t the best dinosaur film I’ve ever seen. We went to go grab our stuff from the downstairs locker rooms before heading home again. Peace out m8s.

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