Life of Lydia

Dear readers in this post I will chronicle the fifth day of our D.C. trip. We didn’t officially decide to go to the museum of the Bible until the night before, but I am glad we did! It became one of my favorite things we did on the trip.

We started sitting in the front car of the Metro, which was fun because you get to see to drivers come and go and hear them talk on the radio.

We got out at the L’enfant Plaza station. We had changed trains here before…

But we were surprised to find a shopping mall above the station!

The entrance to the museum has what I think are Hebrew letters on it.

The whole museum was much larger and more fancy than I had expected. The ornate staircase is an example.

The top floor was full of archaeological l digs. I don’t remember where this jewelry was found, but I was very impressed that the bracelet was still on a string.

There were a lot of jars and pots.

These were balls used as measuring weights.

Arrows and sling stones from Lachish. Latter when I showed my mother this picture she said, “Lachish is the most Bible Museum thing ever.”

This was a stone from the temple wall in Jerusalem. Father saw the whole wall when he went to Israel. (That was back in his single days.)

The remains of a basket.

These are boxes for dead people’s bones, with their names etched on. I asked Father what had happened to the bones and he gave me a non-answer.

These were copys of the names written on the bone boxes.

We went into a room with paintings of Old Testament prophets.

I told my Father that this one was very dramatic. He said “That was a rough time.”

We watched a slightly over-dramatic video about ancient coins.

The next section we went to was all about how the Bible got from the original manuscripts to modern translations. This section had a lot of replicas of bigger name artifacts at more important museums, such as the scroll of Isaiah from the Dead Sea Scrolls, pictured above. Father is pretty sure he saw the original in Israel.

They had large Bible maps with texture to represent elevation. They also had very over-dramatic videos of a guy driving around Bible lands in cool cars.

They had videos of famous Bible translators. These resonated with me because they reminded me of a NHD performance. Here, my father poses with William Tyndale.

Original King James Bible.

Father called him “our boy, William Tyndale.”

They had the jeep from the over-dramatic videos on display.

We ate lunch at a cafe in the museum, and had a nice view of the lobby.

After lunch we went to the “World of Jesus of Narzareth” exhibit.

They have built a replica of Narzareth. I don’t know what all the red light is about.

Father said it felt like Johnny Morris had started a Bible Museum.

As much as I would have liked to stay at the museum longer, we had to leave to utilize our timed Air and Space museum tickets. We exited through the gift shop, which included Narnia themed merchandise. (Such as Aslan hugging a lollypop) We went through so many gift shops on this trip and bought nothing. (I am really bad at buying souvenirs. When I went to the OCC processing center I walked around the little gift shop trying to convince myself to buy something, but I failed. I didn’t even try on this trip.)

On our way to the air and Space Museum, we stopped at the Eisenhower memorial. I felt like this memorial wasn’t designed as well as some of the others in DC. It felt like a stark plaza with some statues, and it didn’t seem to be designed to bring out certain emotions. Father was trying to be all cool by talking about how we had been to the real Eisenhower museum in Abilene. Of course no one but me even heard him.

Once we finally got to the air and space museum, we discovered a cool fountain in front of it.

Whenever we go on a vacation, my Father makes it a priority to visit any air related sites in the area. On this trip he got to go to two air and space museums and a small airport in College Park.

Uppon entering the museum, the first place I wanted to go was the bathroom. I happened to cross paths with the girl who had performed right after me at History Day. She was very friendly both at History Day and the museum. She told me how much she liked my performance and was very encouraging.

One the main attractions at this air museum is the original Wright flyer. They had a whole room dedicated to it. (Fun fact: we used to be neighbors with cat brothers named Wilbur and Oriville. Wilbur always stayed close to home, while Oriville frequently came to visit us. (This was before we had Kit Kat.) When Wilbur and Oriville’s owners decided to move out of state, my mother helped find a new home for the cats. I had a hard time visiting the museum exhibit without thinking about our former neighbors.)

The signs said that everything except the fabric (and I assume the mannequin) was original.

I thought this picture and quote was cool. (Although I still think of Oriville as a cat name.)

Next, we went into the general aviation section. Father was pleased to see his hat’s namesake.

Half the museum was closed for renovations, but I think Father enjoyed what was open.

Visiting the air and space museum reminded Father of when we went to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida quite a while ago. (It was several years before COVID.) He was very upset because he was charged what he thought was a unnecessarily high rate for parking when he was already paying admission. He believed this was unreasonable because the only reason someone would be parking there would be to visit the museum. He felt that they should incorporate the costs of the parking lot into the ticket price, and that they were just trying to milk money out of tourists. He was sharing all of this as we were walking down a street where on one side you could see the Washington Monument and on the other the U.S. Capitol. I requested that he stop being upset about his expenditures on a trip that happened several years ago and take a moment to view two of America’s most iconic landmarks. He obliged and took the above photo.

Our final stop for the day was the National Archives. I have a soft spot for the National Archives, as they run the presidential libraries.

We had to go through security before entering the building.

Only a small part of the building was open to the general public. The main room pictured above housed the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights.

As we filed past the documents, we could hear a couple with British accents commenting on how hard they were to read. The declaration of Independence was especially faint. I wasn’t able to decipher any of the signatures.

I was a bit uncomfortable because there were armed guards flanking the documents, but Father had no qualms with intently studying them.

We walked through the Navy Memorial again on our way back to the Metro. This time there was no concert going on, so we tried to get a picture of Father standing on Missouri.

Once we were back at the hotel, Father had to wind down from a long day.

Back in Missouri, Jacques went for a walk!