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After the Labor Day traffic cleared up a bit, Roberts paternal grandparents came back up for a visit.
We lured them up by mentioning the new Air and Space museum.
After a chance to help keep the boy well fed...
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We headed out to Dulles Airport to see all the cool stuff they have collected there.
(You may notice a theme in this shot of Robert eating in front of the Concorde.)
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And he did open his eyes briefly (he was napping pretty hard) to look at the Space Shuttle.
This is the Enterprise being restored for the Smithsonian. The placard pointed out that while
the Enterprise has not been in use as a Space Shuttle for many years, it has proven to be
a very valuable parts storehouse.
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It's a little hard to see (I should have brought Sarah's good digital camera) but the name of the cute red
place behind Robert is "The Crosley Flea" -- it was almost Robert's size...
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He did spend a lot of his time at the museum being very happy to nap while being pushed around.
The rest of us enjoyed the chance to see how huge the SR-71 Blackbird is (the dark plane in the middle):
a two seater, I think, that's more than a quarter the size of the Concorde.
Cool trivia about this particular one: it set a new speed record on
it's final flight from LA to Washington: 1 hour, 4 minutes, 20 seconds. I know people who commute longer than
that every day.
Other cool things: Robert got the chance to see several models of plane which his grandfather became acquainted
with during his time on the USS Antietam. The building itself is kind
of amazing: one roof covering a Concorde, the Blackbird, the Enola Gay, a Boeing 707 and the Space Shuttle
Enterprise (which seems much bigger in person -- don't let the photo fool you). The duct work was massive and
they had really cool pneumatic pole lighting towers to light the various planes since there are few walls and
the ceiling is a long way away.
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Later in the month, Susan came up from Atlanta. We all had fun at the Chart House resteraunt where we had a late lunch
and watched the "Cherry Blossom" paddlewheel excursion boat try 3 times before being able to dock --
note the very brown water; that's the remains of Hurricane Ivan flowing down the Potomac. The captain wasn't used to
nearly that much current. Robert seemed to enjoy the brisk weather for the walk down and back, even if he did sleep
through most of it.
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Somehow we talked Susan into not only giving advice on how to mount the really cool letters Janek gave Robert, but she
even took over that project: painted a couple art areas on the nursery walls and hung the letters. Robert really loves
his very spiff nursery (and his Aunt Susan, of course!).
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