International Spy Museum

Of all of the museums that cost money in DC, we've discovered that the International Spy Museum is, by far, the best.  You're greeted by the Green Jaguar XKR from the James Bond movie Die Another Day with the clip playing in the background.  Then they shuttle you into a movie theater via a flashy blue-lit elevator to learn about a spy's life.  The whole entry experience makes you think spying is glamorous and fun, while the rest of the museum explains why it's really not. 

You're encouraged to assume a new identity when you first enter the museum and then are quizzed and handed an assignment along the way.  I thought this part of the museum would have been more fun had there been actual actors posing as security to quiz you along the way and let you know how believable you were.  It's actually pretty difficult to memorize a bunch of pieces of information about someone in just a few minutes (although, luckily, I'd just finished the book: Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer, which made it much easier).

I thoroughly enjoyed the first exhibit all about tricks of the trade, complete with lots of handy (and outdated) gadgets, plus another Bond car.  Then, it dives into a history of spying from the Greek-Trojan Horse incident to the current threat of cyber-attack.  In the basement, there is a Bond Villain exhibit, which would have been excellent had I actually watched all of the Bond movies since the beginning of time.  With the kids, we spent two hours in the museum, but agreed that you could easily spend four because it is so incredibly interesting.

Alison learning about the Trojan Horse

Jamestown & Yorktown

Jamestown 1607: The Virginia Company sends over some colonizers to exploit the riches in a new land.  They fail, but that doesn't stop more and more people from colonizing in the exact same spot for decades to come.  The Jamestown settlement location is packed with information, a reconstructed church, a fascinating archaeological museum, a walk with signage through the different parts of town (with excavated buildings that are now just piles of stones), a glass-blowing demonstration (which was under renovation when we arrived), and great views of the James River.  It's a good place to wander about on a nice day.  I liked the archaeological museum the best, which houses the remains of some of the settlers and is built over the spot where the New World's first democratically-elected leadership body met.

Jamestown's Church

The Governor of Virginia and Some Other Guy

Main Road Through Jamestown

Jamestown is connected to Yorktown via the scenic Colonial Parkway.  Although the Yorktown museum is a bit dated, they do have a huge ship that you can walk through and the video makes it pretty clear that Yorktown was a major turning point in the Revolutionary War ("His majesty will be most annoyed.").  If you like battlefield drives, Yorktown has two loops that show the main encampments and troop movements and the historic section of town is also preserved for you to take a stroll through.

Yorktown Victory Monument

What's a battlefield without a bunch of cannons?

Both sites are fairly interesting, but if there were only time to see one of them, I would definitely pick Jamestown.  I haven't gotten the opening song in the movie Pocahontas out of my head since.

Claude Moore Colonial Farm

Originally, the only reason I made everyone get into the car and drive over 30 minutes to see the Claude Moore Colonial Farm, was to get another stamp for my NPS passport book.  However, this little place, nestled right outside the heavily armored gates to the CIA, turned out to be a perfect short walk and even better kid outing.

The farm is a historically accurate, working farm from the year 1771.  So accurate, that the goose and turkey cages are a PETA attack just waiting to happen. 

7-31-13 - Geese

Turkeys

The farm has a beautiful, short path past a tobacco house and field, pigs, and chickens, all leading to the farmhouse where actors sit and answer questions about what life was like in 1771.  The whole farm doesn't take long to see and the walk through the forest is scenic and fun.  It is also interesting to compare the farm to those of today.  This farm was mostly forested with small areas carved out for various plants and animals, unlike field after field of corn with little tree coverage left. 

Tobacco House

Baby Pig

Living History

Free-Range Chickens

Inside the Main House

Alison spent a lot of time trying to capture this rooster.

Main House

If we're ever in the area, we'd go back since Alison really enjoyed seeing the animals up close.

Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens

Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens is a great little spot where, each July, lotus flowers and water lilies blossom in abundance amid what are natural wetlands-turned-water-garden, right in the middle of the East Side of DC.  We visited on one hot morning and found the walk to the boardwalk and around the gardens to be surprisingly beautiful!  Not only were the flowers amazing, the wildlife (butterflies, birds, dragonflies, etc) was abundant.  Here are some of the shots I got with my new camera:

 

National Aquarium

We've had absolutely no reason to go to Baltimore, MD for the entire two years we've lived here, even though it's only 1.5 hours away.  So, we finally decided to make a special trip just to see the National Aquarium last Friday.

It's not the world's greatest aquarium and, after being spoiled with the free museums in DC, I thought the $35 price tag was a bit high, but it was a really great place to take Alison, who has always loved a big tank full of fish.

The major attractions are the location (right on the Inner Harbor of Baltimore - Baltimore itself reminded me a lot of Milwaukee, but the Inner Harbor seems like it might be a fun place to hang out), the dolphin exhibit/show, a jellyfish area, an Australia exhibit (which reminded me more of an aviary with fish rather than an aquarium), and what Alison calls the "Daddy Shark" exhibit.  Instead of having a big, bright cage for the sharks with corals, other fish, turtles, etc, the "Daddy Shark" exhibit was at the very bottom of a long ramp.  It was dark and the big, circular cage had nothing except some ugly rocks and a bunch of large sharks.  It's almost like they were trying to scare you as you descended into the depths of the ocean.  I was surprised that this became Alison's favorite place.  I guess there's something about human nature that makes you simultaneously scared and reverent of large sharks.  I know now that's probably just part of our DNA.

Jellyfish Exhibit Decorations

Puppet Show in the Kid's Activity Area

Dolphin Show

Australia Exhibit

Alison got an umbrella as a souvenir and decided to use it even though it wasn't raining.

I'm glad we went, especially since at age three children go from being free to paying $22.  It was a fun girl's trip and probably the last time Alison and I will travel, just the two of us, for quite some time.

A Few Big Events in April and May

Aside from our trip to Delaware, we had a couple other noteworthy events.

First, Grandpa King came to visit with his girlfriend, Kathy, at the end of April.  We all had a good time touring DC and eating delicious foods.  Alison enjoyed hanging out with Grandpa, Kathy, and Uncle Justin for that stretch of five days.

Grandpa & Alison - Old Town Alexandria Waterfront

Nathan finished painting and adding a closet in the new baby's room, so we moved the crib and got Alison to use her new "Big Girl Bed".  She was not very happy about being forced out of her crib.

Big Girl Bed

On the 19th, Alison and I went strawberry-picking at Shlagel Farms.  Last year, she ate strawberries constantly (both ripe and white ones - it didn't matter) and the outing ended in this strawberry coma:

2012 Strawberry Coma

This year, Alison was an excellent strawberry-picking machine!  She knew exactly which ones to grab and only ate a few....until the ride home where she mostly finished her small batch of about 20 that she had picked.  We also got to feed the chickens, play on the playground and dig in the sand before it started to downpour on us.  Alison asked if we could go strawberry-picking again the next day.

Great Harvest

Chicken Attack!

Delaware & Horseshoe Crabs

Last weekend we went on a mini-trip to the Delaware and Maryland beaches.  It's not prime beach time or weather, but I was interested in seeing the area and, in particular, a phenomenon that we can't see anywhere else: the annual horseshoe crab spawn.  Every year in May and June, the horseshoe crabs of Delaware Bay come to shore during full and new moons to spawn.  The full moon would have been better, but it is taking place over Memorial Day this year and Nathan explained to me that he couldn't take off of work because, "Memorial Day at the Memorials is kind of a big deal".  So, we went for the new moon instead.

We have my friend, Maureen, to thank for routing us toward Cape Henlopen State Park.  They have a nice campground right on a 3.2-mile bike loop that hits all of the park's major attractions (Fort Miles, an old WWII and Cold War fort, an observation tower, some scenic points and, best of all, the beach).  The beach in the park was lovely and not very crowded.  I had attempted to convince Nathan that we should drag our tent along and camp but, being almost eight months pregnant, I'm now glad he talked me out of that. We rented this cute cabin for two nights instead and enjoyed all that the park had to offer, but got to end our days in a real bed.

Our Cute Little Two-Room Cabin

Enjoying the Top Bunk

Beach Wind

Loving the Sand & Waves

Cape Henlopen

Learning to Use the Spotting Scope

Beach Ghost

We had scoped out the above as prime horseshoe-crab-viewing real estate: a quiet beach in the park next to a section roped off to protect some endangered birds.  However, the park apparently closes that section off at night and we were forced to go to a public beach in nearby Lewes to try to find crabs.  We saw nothing and that's when I knew I needed some professional help.  After talking to the gift shop lady the next day (ok maybe she's not a professional, but she knew more than I did!), I found out that the best spot in the park is near a huge fishing pier at around 9:45pm that night.  The first horseshoe crab I saw was a real thrill.  I sat there and watched it until my flashlight scared it back into the ocean.  As I walked down the beach, farther and farther away from the lights of the fishing pier, the crabs became easier to spot.  The higher the tide, the closer they came to the edge and I got to see many, many pairs spawning and a bunch of loser crabs still looking for a date.  Mission accomplished!

Spawning!

Lone Horseshoe Crab

At the end of our trip, we ventured into the town of Rehoboth Beach, which is a crowded little area with tourists galore, a nice boardwalk, and Funland, which was a little carnival ride area that costs about 25 cents to ride the average ride.  Most of the rides were Alison-sized and she had a blast blowing right through naptime.

This was Alison's favorite ride because it went FAST!

We ended our trip with a visit to Assateague Island National Seashore.  Alison's favorite thing to do the entire trip was to take off her shoes and let the waves get her feet wet.  We did that a lot.  At this beach, there were a couple random horseshoe crabs that were tossed ashore by the waves.  Nathan saved one that came in on its back and so becomes the only one of us to touch a horseshoe crab in its natural habitat.  Lucky guy!

Spring Again in DC

In my book, spring in DC officially starts when the cherry blossoms bloom.  The peak this year was 4/8-4/10 and we made a special point to go see them Tuesday after work when it was a perfect 75-80 degrees.  I've heard that in Japan they celebrate cherry blossoms because of their fleeting beauty.  It's their version of stopping to smell the roses, I guess.  Even though we've lived here three years and can easily see the tidal basin in bloom, I feel like the year we fail to make time to do so is the year we probably need to move away from DC because that means that life has become too urban or busy.  If you can't stop and appreciate those special things that come along infrequently then you're not really living, right?

 Here are some photos of the family with the trees.  We walked from Nathan's office near the Washington Monument, along the Tidal Basin to FDR, then found a much less-crowded trail along the river to the Lincoln Memorial where I decided to hop onto a Capital Bikeshare bike back to the metro (because walking that far is just not as much fun with 25 extra pounds).

 On Friday, we also took Alison to get her first haircut!  She screamed bloody murder until I pointed out the happy 5-year-old who'd just finished his haircut.  With two lollypops and a bucket of toys, the rest was easy and now Alison no longer looks like a wild child....most of the time.