I almost forgot how nice the museums are after Labor Day. Today I took the kids and went down to the National Mall. I was giving the S.O. some time to work on her dissertation. So after a lovely breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes, we piled into the car and headed down to the Mall. It's nice arriving there by 10 a.m. because you can find a parking space. Today we had our pick of spots, which was the first sign that we were outside that bookend of Labor Day.
My son wanted to go to the Air and Space. I'm not a big fan of the Air and Space because it is to the history of flight what the History Channel is to History: you get the impression that the only reason either exists is because of war. They've gotten better in the last several years: the demonstration area where kids can learn about aerodynamics and pretend to fly a plane is one of my son's favorite parts. If I were director I think the first thing I'd do is replace that aircraft carrier with a re-enactment of David Bowie's Space Oddity with full laser-light show. Sure you might turn off some of the old folks and the more straight-laced veterans, and of course the chickenhawks, but you'd bring in a ton of stoners.
Anyway, we were parked right in front of Air and Space, so we went in. The place was nearly empty and they'd even fixed that station in the learning section where you pull the little astronaut up to the ceiling. I'd say on every visit of ours within the last year that thing hadn't been working. After about an hour and a half my son said he was hungry, so I tricked him into going to the National Gallery of Art to eat lunch.
Usually when we hit the NGA, we're at the wrong time to see the Matisse cutouts, but this time it was the first thing we hit. The Tower Room is a good place for them, since there are only five, but three of them are massive. It's a nice scale.
Then we had some of that nasty NGA pizza.
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