August 14 How HOT is HOT ?

Well, I have not tried frying an egg on the pavement but I was just over at the RV park office/store and in the shade the temperature was 102 degrees !

Yesterday we got up early and took the public bus from here at the RV park. They drop us off about 4 miles from here at a subway station. Everything is underground so we are always scurrying for the elevator or escalator for Gary's use. It was Saturday so they were not running as often but it was still only 6 minutes before a rail car came. Man, they run really fast. You want to be seated very quickly before they start off or you risk being in the lap of someone you may not have otherwise chosen to be that friendly with.

The whole transportation system is very fast and efficient. We were however glad we had attended the RV park sightseeing orientation session so we knew what to expect and understood the signs and system of tickets and coins.

We emerged out of the ground in downtown DC just a block and a half from the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. It was enormous and we spent the entire day there without even visiting every area of it, let alone being able to read all the exhibit verbiage. We thoroughly enjoyed the portion on the space program in particular. The aircraft displays however, were a disappointment after having visited the world class aircraft museum in Oshkosh.

I persuaded Gary to go to the 3D IMAX movie about the space station. It was awesome. Great photography and not cut and dry...humorous, personal accounts of life in space and the interaction of the personnel involved. The 3D aspect seemed to be a "gimmick" at first but really added to the experience.

When we left the air conditioned building the air outside hit us like a blast furnace. We moved slowly and carefully to the Metro station and proceeded back to the bus station. Being Saturday, we had just missed the bus we needed and had to wait nearly an hour for the next one. We were thoroughly exhausted from the heat by the time we arrived back in our air conditioned motor home.

This morning we got up and realized that with another day of severe air quality warning and increasing heat, it was time for a rest day. Gary has been napping on and off and I have been doing catch up with a box of mail that we received from home yesterday.

I am hoping Gary is up to another day at the museums tomorrow as there is so much more to see and do if he can handle it. Smithsonian has a "National Museum of American History", "National Museum of Natural History" and "National Museum of the American Indian" all of which would be very fascinating.