DC Trip and Ocean Hall Review

Georgia and I had to run into Washington DC to meet with a financial adviser regarding our wanna be pending retirement.  I took a few pictures along the way.  This a neat old building across from the place we were visiting, the "Old Post Office"

After the meeting we wandered down to the Nationa Museum of Natural History, intending to use it mostly as a passage to the Mall, on the other side.  However, we spent a while, visiting the Ye Olde Gifte Shoppe, as well as the Ocean Hall, an exhibit I've been wanting to stop at for some time.   This is the stuffed elephant that graces the entrance to Natural History on the Mall side.

Georgia standing behind the jaws of "Mega-Jaws", a recreation of Megalodon sharks jaws, complete with simulated teeth.  We're still looking for the big one...

An ancient and  modern whale skeletons hanging in the Ocean Hall.  I wasn't that impressed with the Ocean Hall.  It had lots of visually stimulating displays, but to me if felt a bit disjointed, as if there was no theme, or perhaps that too many themes had been stuffed into too small an area (not that the exhibit was small).

 A view of "The Castle", source of all evil, from the Independence St. side, showing the garden there.  The trees in bloom are not the fabled Yoshino Cherries, which haven't bloomed yet, but rather, Saucer Magnolias, which are also planted around the Mall area extensively and were in full bloom today.

 Georgia playing hide and seek in the magnolia.  These flowers are much larger than the cherry blossoms.

A close up of the magnolia flower.

The silver tree in the sculpture garden next to Natural History.

The dreaded invader, the English or House Sparrow, was out soliciting food, and posing for photos.

Daffodils and their relatives were also out en mass in beds around the mall.