I left the College Park Metro Station at 10 am and rode to the Smithsonian stop.  My first excursion today was at the Museum of American History.  I recall going there once before in my life but the ONLY things I remember seeing before are the really huge American Flag at the entrance and Dorothy's Ruby Slippers from the Wizard of Oz, so it was nice going back and looking at all the exhibits.  They had a really neat temporary exhibit in memory of September 11.  It had artifacts that were found in the rubble and cameras, etc that were used to document the terror of the day.  It was a really well done exhibit, most likely my favorite in the museum.  There was also an entire exhibit on money (mainly coins).  They had some man's entire coin collection on display... it was amazing... he had coins from all over the world and from all time eras, ranging from Ancient Rome to coins from the state of Nevada to your normal silver dollar.  The musical instrument display was a rather large let down, as it was only about 5 sets of violins and violas... nothing else.  There were, however, several trumpets displayed in various other exhibits throughout the museum.  I ate lunch there after I was done seeing all the exhibits... let me tell you... my lunch there cost about twice as much as it did at the Air & Space Museum... and the food was better at the air & space museum when I went two weeks ago.  Anyway... I took pictures at the American History museum. This first picture is of the sculpture in front of the museum itself.  I found the strange shape interesting, thus the picture...

This is the huge American flag they have displayed in the main lobby area.  This picture does nothing for demonstrating just how massive it really is.

I'm not quite sure what this dress was worn for but it was a really amazing dress... and my picture isn't great either, so it doesn't look that impressive, but that's my idea of a material pattern - stars  :)

I took this picture really thinking of my brother (since he plays the trumpet and all), but its one of the 5 or so trumpets that are on display somewhere in the museum. (this particular one can be seen in the pop culture exhibit)

And finally, Dorothy's ruby slippers... There's no place like home ;)

Well, after I was done at the American History Museum, I wanted to go get a book from the Air & Space Museum Book shop.  (On a side note, I finished the book I was reading for my internship last night.  When I read the epilogue, I was surprised to discover that the author was a professor in the EF department at VT... I emailed her and she replied today! :)  Anyway, I ended up getting a book called The Dream of Spaceflight:  Essays on the Near Edge of Infinity.  It was on sale, so I got a book that is normally sold for $14.00 for only $5!  It looks pretty good.  It wasn't exactly what I was looking for, but that's okay.  I was actually trying to find a book related to aircraft flight, but this should tide me over... I couldn't seem to find exactly what I was looking for, but like I said, this looks like a pretty good book.  I also couldn't go past the Curious George Shirt... it says "Houston, we have a monkey!" and its in my size and everything!!  :)

Well, originally this morning I had planned on going to the National Building Museum as well, but I was beginning to get tired and it was starting to move on into the afternoon, so I headed to Union Station.  I walked around and window shopped there... picked up some literature on Amtrak services and then caught the metro on back to College Park.