A day of rest - I guess

We took it easy getting up today. We did not leave the hotel until 11 a.m., and made our way to a stroll through Tyson's Corner, one big ole mall.

Our first stop was to get a meal of food (pizza). Our server was Italian and bald, but had painted on or maybe tattooed, hair. It was sweet.

Rigby's shop of choice was the Lego store. Lucy found a couple pink stores and the Disney Store, while Erik and Stacy enjoyed LL Bean. We paused briefly to pay our respects to the almighty Apple Store. We marveled at the capitalism and then escaped with wallets in hand.

We set the Garmin to tell us how to get to the National Air & Space Museum,The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Washington Dulles International Airport. It is the companion facility to the Museum on the National Mall. The building opened in December 2003 - it is a massive hangar full of dozens of planes and hundreds of artifacts.

Most notably featured there:
SR-71 Blackbird
B-29 Superfortress, Enola Gay (dropped the bomb on Hiroshima)
Space Shuttle Enterprise
Air France Concorde jet
The first FedEx plane
Vietnam and Korean War jets and helicopters
World War II fighter planes
Gemini VII space capsule
the Mobile Quarantine Unit used upon the return of the Apollo 11 crew

While the larger planes rested on the ground, the smaller planes were suspended from the ceiling. We all really enjoyed it! We will have lots of pictures up soon.

We ended our visit riding up an elevator to the Donald D. Engen Observation Tower which allowed us to watch air traffic at Dulles Airport. Rigby and Lucy were so excited to see so many planes landing onto the nearby runways.

We ended the day in the hotel pool, where Rigby showed off his new swimming skills, which he has been learning at the Sports Barn.

Off to bed and ready for a 5 a.m. wake-up call. We depart the hotel at 6 a.m. to jump aboard the Metro and into DC. We have everything prepacked (snacks, drinks, crayons, coloring books, etc) and clothes laid out.

As Rigby and Lucy were going to sleep, they both declared they wanted to be President one day. These were unsolicited comments. Rigby said he wanted to be President because he can make good decisions, and he knows how to make the world happy.

Tomorrow, we will all experience one big historic day.