ORDINARY TO EXTRAORDINARY

The ordinary is the haircut. Early in our RV days, we talked to a couple of full time RVers and asked them how they maintained haircuts on the road without taking the risk of walking into an unknown barbershop. They showed us their "As Seen on TV" haircutting device. We have been using one since and after more than 2 weeks on the road, it was time for the haircut.

We have already been to the Smithsonian Air and Space museum out by Dulles Airport, but this was our first visit to the one downtown. Here is where you walk through the door and are immediately under the Spirit of St. Louis. In the same museum is the original Wight Flyer, the first airplane to fly. The display airplane is the center piece of a room devoted to the Wrights and the history of their family and how the brothers developed the first airplane. In this museum are also areas dedicated to the story of the development of the Airline industry and there is a nice example of a United Airlines DC 2 and a nice DC3 from Eastern Airlines. There are exhibits of WWI and WWII machines and I was interested in the German Bf109 and the British Spitfire because I am currently reading Michael Korda's "With Wings Like Eagles" , The Untold Story of The Battle of England.

We had been putting off going to the National Archives because every time we walked by there was a line of people about 1/2 block long waiting to get in. Finally we decided to get in line and see the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. The line moved quickly an yes, we got to see the originals of these documents. We also found out that we can go to the back door of the Archives and gain entry to an area devoted to genealogical and historical research. So we have added a visit to the research area to our agenda for the next few days. Marlene wants to add details to her records of ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War.

We finished our day with a walk past the White House on our way to meet Marlene's brother, Harlan, and his friend Nelda. They will be in DC for 3 days and we'll be exploring more sites with them while they are here.