Parents' Visit Part 2

I almost forgot that there was more to my visit with the parents! We also spent a day out at the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum - the Smithsonian's annex near Dulles Airport. My dad loved every minute of it, but there were also plenty of interesting objects for us non-aviation buffs.

I'm always fascinated by the pioneering days and the Golden Age of aviation. It seemed so exciting and glamorous.

The Clipper Flying Cloud. Such a far cry from today's air travel where everyone is packed like sardines and given nothing to eat.

And I would be remiss if I didn't give props to our military aviation.

The Enola Gay is obviously very controversial and there was a lot of debate over how to present it in the museum. They even wrote a book about it.

A captured Japanese Zero....

...and Japanese missile.

This is adorable. However, it doesn't seem very safe.

And the piece de resistance....the space shuttle Discovery.

It's ginormous. I couldn't get the whole thing in one shot.

There are lots of items related to space travel, but this one intrigues me the most. In the early days of space exploration, the astronauts had to be quarantined when they returned to Earth, because there was no telling what kind of diseases they might have encountered in space.