We actually have a lot of pictures this time around, all taken by Joshua or our guest photographer, Scott. As usual, your nerdy update will be courtesy of me, the Blazing Rebel. And so it begins...

Let's just start off with a little bit of observed nerdiness that spanned both days. If you don't understand any of these next few pictures, you're probably better off.

Anyway, the first day of the trip we headed down to the National Air and Space Museum which is actually the Smithsonian museum I've been to the most.

We got to see some missles and other flying modes of exploration and destruction.

There were some super-swank spacesuits:

Which, most importantly, had some super-swank sparkly shoes as part of the hip ensemble. If you look closely you can see that they look like rejects from the Michael Jackson collection from the early 1980's.

Just for comparison, let's look at some shoes that are not so sparkly:

Those astronauts sure know how to pack those suits with goodies:

We also saw some really great computers. I mean, they were just super:

I think right about now we need to take a short pause to dispel a few rumors that have arisen since this trip. People are talking, and I don't think I like what they're saying. First of all, I did NOT steal barettes from a sleeping baby. We bartered. We made a trade. If you're all too ignorant to understand this complex system of commerce, I'll present some evidence that explains it. Yes, it's true that I was wearing the child's barettes (and please note that Joshua was clearly looking at my ass instead of my hair):

However, you can clearly see that the child is wearing my barettes, and she looks absolutely thrilled to the point of ecstacy about it:

So the evidence is plain to see. I did not steal anything. We traded, and in fact she was wide awake for the entire transaction. However, you'll notice a strange turn of events later in the day when the child very clearly steals from me!!

That's right. You can see that in the above picture she is now clearly wearing ALL of the barettes, leaving me with a big fat pile of nothing. Therefore, any action taken on my part to re-acquire said barettes is purely justified and need not be mentioned again. Although I'd like to mention that the next day she not only has several sets of barettes in, and ponytail holders, but she's caught on film holding my hair sticks!!

Ok, let's move on. This is what would happen if Microsoft ran the space program (and might explain some of the recent setbacks in said program!):

Did you know fireworks are legal in Virginia? We saw some at the store. And at the museum. I was surprised I couldn't find any mention of Jack Parsons in any of the display boards about the advances in Rocket Science. I highly recommend reading this book about the inventor of liquid rocket fuel and his involvement in some of the cooler secret societies of this century:

We also saw some hubble-related things. I know I saw the back-up Hubble mirror, and Joshua tells me this is a model of the Hubble, or perhaps a back-up Hubble. I think I was distracted by a theiving little kid at this point, so I'm not even sure what this is! :

Joshua was thrilled to notice that the entire mock-up of the moon landing provided a nice cushy carpet for the astronauts to land on. Maybe that's why that faked footage of the supposed "moon walk" was so bouncy! It was because they had such plush carpeting!!!

Ok, we got to see some very neat displays about interesting equipment both used by and carried by the astronauts on various missions. My favorite was the Penetrometer:

And my other favorite was the Rescue Signal Mirror. I can just hear NASA as they train the astronauts: "Here you go. Now, if you get stuck out in space, or on the moon someplace, just find a good spot of sunlight and flash this mirror at us. We'll find you.":

And here is a reason that early astronauts were not women:

The Air and Space Museum is not without its own sense of humor, and they very wisely included some of the kitschier science fiction memoribilia from the days when science fiction was about how suave white men paraded around the galaxy and slept with exotic alien women. This was part of a set for Buck Rogers, and you can clearly see that the capsule is lined in red velvet and looks ultra comfy. You'll also note the hidden bar inside the panels. I want to be a swank astronaut too.

And of course, the very definition of sci-fi, the Zap Gun. Note the rings around it. Classic.

I don't even remember what these were, other than being suave as hell.

Scott was obsessed with this one Optics display, and took a million pictures of it. Here's one:

I thought I should take a picture of this just in case I never win one myself, as unlikely as that seems.

We also saw a Nazi blimp. Scott wanted to get a picture of him and Joshua under it, but I was too offended.

After we vacated the Air and Space Museum (ok, after they asked us to leave) we wandered out onto the National Mall with the intention of checking out the very cool Folklife Festival which celebrated Appalachia, Scotland, and Mali. The first quadrant of the mall apparently wasn't part of the festival, but we didn't know that. It was some sort of religious group celebrating pilgrimage and trying to win back believers. It was still vaguely entertaining (they had a cider press and a giant statue of Colossus, at the very least).

Then Scott and Joshua took touristy pictures, while we looked for the actual Folklife Festival (which, it turns out, was all closed down by the time we finally found it).

OH! And the religious festival had goats, so how bad could it really be... (Would you just LOOK at all of the barettes in that girl's hair?!)

Last but not least, here's Abby showing off her stylish hair and a sticker that she got because Spyke was a sucker and gave a bunch of money to some random beggar with a cause. (Don't those barettes look much better on her than the ones that I stole?)

On to the next day