Washington D.C. (Episode II)

Not even a whole week after going to D.C., we decided to return. Having more of an understanding of how the metro works made a second visit easier. I took 500 photos this time!

This time, we decided to visit the National Museum of Natural History.
The main building on the National Mall contains 1.5 million square feet of space overall and 325,000 square feet of exhibition and public space; altogether the Museum is the size of 18 football fields, and houses over 1000 employees.

There are more than 125 million natural science specimens and cultural artifacts. Just to name a few of the museum holdings, the collections include 30 million insects carefully pinned into tiny boxes; 4½  million plants pressed onto sheets of paper in the Museum’s herbarium; 7 million fish in liquid-filled jars; and 2 million cultural artifacts, including 400,000 photographs housed in the National Anthropological Archives. Over 3½ million specimens are out on loan each year; over 15,000 visitor days are spent in the collections.

As is the norm, when a visitor walks into the museum, one is greeted with this:

It just takes your breath away by sheer size.
I was a little disappointed with some changes made in the Museum, namely the animal section. They used to have displays of animals in what looked like their natural habitat that could put me into a trance just looking at everything, but no more. Now they have made it very mundane and sterile. A shame.

As in other years, the children liked the rocks, minerals and gems best.
But here are the best gems, three of the four I took with me to D.C.

But there were other gems to delight in, like the Hope Diamond.

I have an affection for Emeralds, (John says, to match my eyes) there were  plenty to see, this is just one example.

These are just a few of the 500 images I took. There HAS to be a special blessing for the man who delights in sharing with me looking over almost each and every one. 🙂