June 15, 2006 Pictures on the Washington D.C. Mall, The National Museum of American History, Thomas Edison Exhibit, among many other amazing exhibits, the National Museum of Nature and Museum of Man, Thai food with our new friend Steve, and pictures of where we stayed.

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June 15th
(As told from the perspective of Carrie)
Today was our museum day.  We wanted to see as much of the museums as we could.  Unfortunately, we are both museum people (and could spend days in a single museum, and only scheduled in one day to see them all – what were we thinking?!).   But first, we thought we’d take some pictures in front of the Washington Monument in the daylight, since our other pictures were all at night.  Here we are looking like the tourists we are. 

         

      

From there we went to the Museum of American History.  Here we spent a lot of time learning about Thomas Edison, an amazing guy.  This is a picture of his filament experiments.  He tried a number of different materials to make the filament for light bulbs before he found the one that worked the best.

        

Here’s a picture of a cartoon.  It shows the owner of a gas company, and a dream he may have had.  He’s dreaming of all the bad things that are now going to happen to him and his company because of Thomas Edison and his inventions.  It’s really funny, make sure you click on it to see it bigger.

This is the world’s largest rubber band.  Just kidding, but that’s what it looks like.  It’s really an elaborate generator. 

   

These are some of the new inventions made possible by Thomas Edison.
Number 33 in this picture is the first s’more maker.
Then, a vacuum cleaner, and here’s a pair of electric socks (cord included).
      

On our way out we saw some of Jim Henson’s puppets from the movie The Dark Crystal.
    

Our next stop was the National Museum of Natural History.  Now, normally in museums, there are signs everywhere that say don’t touch, keep your hands off the glass…etc.  But not here.
 
Jonathan finally gets something in a museum that he is invited to touch.
So, he took full advantage of the opportunity...

I really wanted to see the Hope Diamond.
After waiting in line, and crowding around a small box, we got to see it.
Isn’t it beautiful?
  

Here’s a natural sand stone formation that is just amazing.
  

And here’s a giant sheet of copper, enough to make over 100,000,000 pennies!
   

Then it was on to the gemstone collection. 
What girl wouldn’t want to go see this?  Here are the emeralds, very pretty.

        

This is a tanzanite brooch.  Tanzanite has only been found in one place in the entire world: a single mine in Tanzania, Africa.  We have been told that it is now almost completely mined out, but after reading the Wikipedia article, it seem this may not be true.  (We've also been told that it’s also really rare to find tanzanite this dark anymore, and that the tanzanite that is being mined now is really light in color (think aquamarine), but again, read the Wikipedia article, and make your own judgment.) 

 
*While we were in Africa, we were only 4 kilometers from
the C-Block tanzanite mine, but didn’t know it until it was too late for us to go visit it.
We drove past it on our way to the airport to fly home.*

This is a sapphire ring (Jonathan’s birthstone).

A Ruby Ring.

A collection of pearls (Carrie’s birthstone).

More Rubies… I love rubies.
 

Oh, and of course, some diamonds.

On our way to have dinner with a friend, Steve, we walked past this fountain and sculpture.  I thought it was really cool, so I made Jonathan pose for me.  What a supermodel!

      

Here’s Thaiphoon where we had dinner with Steve.  We love Thai food.

          

Here are the pictures of where we stayed while in DC.
This is Yvette’s condo in Vienna, Virginia.  Thanks Yvette!  You’re the greatest!

    

   

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