Today was sort of the final "museum day" for us in DC. Since we are both fans of urban planning and architecture, we went to the National Building Museum. It's in an 1887 building called the "Pension Building". The center of the building is a huge atrium, about 5 stories tall, with two sets of columns across it. It's so large it was used for inaugurations for about 20 years around the turn of the century (erm, around 1900, that is).

The exhibits included a large section about the history of DC (including the protests against the freeways and beltways), and another section that basically showed off what the museum has in their archives: historic bricks from brickworks around the country, cast iron, stamped tin/zinc, terra cotta molds and pieces, plus much more. It was great- as enthusiasts of that sort of thing, we spent almost three hours there.

The bookstore at the Building Museum is worth noting. They have a nice "specialty bookstore" section as well as other building and design-related items. It'd be worth seeing even without the exhibits!

After the building museum, we took a cab across the Mall to the Air and Space Museum. It's a very busy museum- 5 million visitors per year- and the exhibits showed a lot of wear. They have some very interesting planes- the Spirit of St. Louis, the Space Ship One, the Rutan Voyager (my favorite!), the Apollo 11 command module, the Friendship 7 capsule, and even the Wright Flyer. Still, the museum just didn't seem impressive. It is so worn and outdated that it didn't do these amazing artifacts justice.

After the museum, we took the metro to Chinatown, then took our normal bus home. We got home at 7pm and were treated to a fantastic dinner by our hosts. Great day!