Our first day into DC we drove our car. That was a big mistake. It was a nightmare finding parking and Daddy had to drive the car around all over and then we found underground parking, where we went down five floors. Then at the end of the day we were soaking wet, because there was a giant rainstorm.
So, the next day we took the Metrorail! I had been really disappointed that we’d taken the car, because I wanted to take the train. I love trains! So we go our tickets and then we took the blue line. It was amazing. When it started up it went really fast. It went through these beautiful places and then it went underground! It was my first underground train station, Crystal City. It was really cool.
When I got to the Natural Museum of History, I went to go see the mammals. There was stuff I’d never seen before. I saw a pink armadillo. It was the smallest armadillo in the world. Also, I saw a grizzly bear and a strange looking giraffe that was like a zebra/deer/giraffe. Then I saw a pigmy hippopotamus. Did you know that everything in the jungle shrinks, like the weird looking giraffe and hippopotamus and a lot of other animals? That’s because big animals can’t get through the thickness of the trees and vines. A full-sized giraffe would be too big to go into the jungle, its head would be up too high so that it couldn’t see the things on the bottom where his feet are, so he could trip. It’s hard to imagine a giraffe tripping, but it would be possible.
I also saw how scientists found that deserts had really big giant rivers running through it at some point. They can tell by seeing hippopotamus bones there and because hippopotamuses like cool rivers not hot deserts that these deserts had big rivers.
I also saw the Hope diamond!
It’s the biggest blue diamond. I also saw the only red diamond on display in the world, as well as an emerald. And then I saw Wulfenite, my favorite. It’s a bright colored rock that had loads of different plates that goes off in different directions.
I also saw a bunch of different gold nuggets.
And what silver looks like before they extract silver from the rock. And copper! And past that I saw amazing stuff, like this weird formation of rocks that looked like a lot of rocks as tall as a tree. That happened because there was a volcano and the lava went down the side. The top cooled but the bottom still remained very hot.
I think that what happened was that after years and years it started to cool, but the top of the rock, used to be one flat rock, but since the bottom was hot the steam needed to get out, so the rocks cracked and then when the lava started to cool, it made the rocks longer, because the lava added to the bottom of it when it cooled.
I also saw meteorites. I always thought they were big rocks and not actually metal, like iron. I also found out that meteors never hurt anyone. No one has yet been killed by a meteor.
Then we went into Prehistoric Man, where I looked at different bones from a long time ago. There was a skull from a human ancestor that didn’t know how to walk on two feet. He usually walked on his hands and feet. Then I saw one that usually walked on two feet, but sometimes walked on his hands and feet. Then finally they walked on their feet! And back then they weren’t as in control of animals as we are today.
I also went to another museum, which had many parts to it. It was the American History Museum. It talked about many things. I was very interested in the section about transportation. First it talked about trains and it had one of the oldest trains in America. It looked awesome! Instead of having four wheels on the front it had two extra wheels and since back then these trains had trouble, because as we know, America isn’t flat. The trains couldn’t take that very well and fell off the rails. So we came up with the idea to handle that with a guiderail and other things that are complicated to describe.
And then I turned around and I saw one of these trains that was really really big and green. And I think it was called the Popcorn train. I could tell that this train was meant to carry loads of freight back. It’s one of my favorite trains and I like trains.
Then I went over to another part of the transportation section where they had a number of old car companies and I found one that was named Cole!
I researched about it and the Cole car car company was around at the end of World War 1. And they made four cars which were amazing cars. Two of them had roofs over them, but the other two didn’t. One was a convertible.
And then I went to the back of the train part of the museum and I saw a Jupiter train, which was made in the 1876. It was used to haul bananas for sixty years then retired in 1976 to the Smithsonian Museum.
I have so much more to write about my trip to DC, but I’m running out of time now. I’ll write more about this later!
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