Under a Microscope in the Capital

August 25^th-September 2^nd, 2014

Arriving into Washington I was greeted by my sister Julie and her 16 year old daughter Rachel even though it was late for a school night.  A couple of days later my sister Sarah flew out from Phoenix since it was the Labour Day long weekend.  It was great to catch up with family.  It had definitely been a while, too long.  I enjoyed going out for lunch with my 18 year old nephew Matt and on another night taking his younger sister, Rachel and Emma, to dinner.  They are definitely turning into interesting and engaging young adults.

Lunch with Matt:

Dinner with Rachel and Emma:

On the weekend we drove into Washington (as they live in Frederick, about an hour outside of the capital).  Sarah and I had been there a few times before so seeing the White House, the Washington Monument and the Capitol wasn’t new but it is still a cool place to visit.  My sisters were off to the National Art Gallery while my brother-in-law Brad, my niece Emma and I went to the Natural History Museum.  The museum was pretty decent, definitely worth the price of admission, which was free as all of the Smithsonian museums do not charge entrance fees.  There was a cool high tech effect in the dinosaur section with cameras pointing at the museum goers while it was projected on a green screen with dinosaurs running about so it was easy to feel like you were about to become lunch for a T-Rex.  It was fun to watch the little kids who would try to pet the smaller raptors or punch out a bigger dinosaur.

At the White House:

Emma's been impaled:

Emma loves to pose with statues:

A triceratops:

The green screen dino action: 

Some nice totem poles:

However, we had the most fun at the end when we entered into a supposedly teenage focused area called Q?rius.  They had some microscopes that were hooked up to computer screens and some samples of different types of sand that you could check out.  Well we didn’t last long on the sand samples and started to stick anything and everything we could imagine such as our fingers, various money bills and other items from our pockets.  I’ll not mention all of them and see if you can figure them out from these pictures…

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

 6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13. 

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

Answers
1, Top of a hand
2. My finger…it was wild as you could see the sweat droplets coming out
3. A squished penny
4. The penny closer up
5. Knuffle Bunny of course
6. Brad’s armhair
7. President Jackson on the $20 bill
8. The back of the $1 bill
9. The White House on the back of thee $20 bill
10. The top of the Lincoln monument on the back of the $5 bill.  Amazingly all 50 states are listed.
11. Lincoln on the $5 bill
12. An icon on an iPhone
13. The pixels of pixels.  We took a pic of the previous one and stuck that under the microscope. Could you keep going deeper and deeper?
14. The panic button on a car FOB
15. Car key
16. Car key
17. Button on my shirt
18. An SD memory card
19. Emma’s tongue!

Emma's tongue in video...a bit spooky:

We must have spent over half an hour playing with the microscopes and Brad couldn’t help but mentions that we could have just gone to his lab where he works on cancer research and done the same thing.

Once we met up with Julie and Sarah, we walked up to the Washington Monument.  All of a sudden three helicopters flew overhead and I immediately recognized that two of them were the same type as Marine One, the helicopter that the president uses to shuttle to and from the White House.  The third chopper was some type of gunship.  They banked towards the White House lawn where one helicopter landed and the other two flew off into the distance.  We wondered whether Obama had just arrived but about five minutes later the two copters flew back over the White House as Marine One took off so likely Barack had just boarded it.  I guess the other similar helicopter is a decoy while the third is the protection.  I couldn’t help but wonder whether my high school colleague, Marvin, who is Obama’s personal assistant might be in the helicopter.  Unlikely, but possible.

Knuffle at the Washington Monument:

Me with my sisters:

Is Obama in there?

If you look closely you can see Marine One on the White House Lawn:

The choppers:

During the rest of the week that I was there we went bowling, played some Guitar Hero and other games and just caught up.  It had definitely been too long since I saw everyone.  My nephew and nieces had grown up a lot since we were last together and I’m a bit sad that I missed so much but it won’t be so long until I see them again as we’re all meeting in Costa Rica for Christmas…can’t wait!