We spent July on the road visiting parents and all siblings
except Barbara’s brother Ron. We were very close to Ron’s house in Northern
Virginia, but he and his family were in Alaska.
Nevertheless we stopped there to visit both of Smithsonian’s Air & Space
museums and complete our aviation theme.
We parked at the Wiehle-Reston East Metro stop – the west
end of the silver line.
All we had to do was stay on until we got to L’Enfant Plaza,
but there was a train derailment at Falls
Church. So we were bused directly from McLean two stops to Ballston (yellow stars on map) where
we got back on the train. We’ll revisit that map later.
Despite the detour we made it to the Smithsonian’s
Washington DC Air and Space museum before its 10am opening. The DC Smithsonian gets
the most prestigious and unique planes. We saw most of the planes with more
attention on the World War II planes, Bill’s particular interest.
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| 1903 Wright Flyer |
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| Ryan NYP Spirit of St. Louis |
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| only remaining Macchi C.202 Folgore (Italian WWII fighter) |
The derailment was not cleared when we returned midday, so
we were bused from Ballston to McLean, except this time it was a two-hour ride through
congested city streets with stops at East Falls Church, West Falls Church (not
even on the silver line), and Tysons Corner (one stop beyond). See map above. Lots
of irate passengers left the bus at Tysons Corner, but bypassing McLean meant a large additional fare, so we stayed on the
bus. After a wait, we got the train at McLean
and when it stopped at Tysons Corner we saw all those who jumped off early.
What an adventure!
At Reston we took a bus to the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Center
near Dulles Airport. This museum has a Lockheed
SR-71 Blackbird, a Concorde, the Space Shuttle Discovery, and countless other
planes from every era. Again, Bill spent more time in the World War II section,
as they had some unique German and Japanese planes.
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| Air France Concorde |
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| Space Shuttle Discovery |
We never heard of an Airphibia before – a plane
that could turn into a car.
And we liked how Airstream made quarantine quarters for the returning
Apollo 11 astronauts.
We also looked in the restoration hanger, where we saw a
Martin B-26 Marauder in pieces. Bill’s dad had a friend that flew them.
