We've wanted to visited the National Museum of Natural History for some time and since the Woodberry boys have "long winter weekend" right now, Jason has a few days off his teaching responsibilities (whoo hoo!). We opted to drive to one of the metro stations and then take the metro into the city. Good idea, but we totally did not know what we were doing. The first station we pulled into, we only saw buses, no metro, so we got back on the road and kept driving. At the next station, we saw only buses, no metro, but decided just to go for it. We shortly realized that there were both. The metro station was just a bit beyond where we could see. Probably was like that where we first pulled off too. Oh well. Then we stood in front of the little ticket kiosk for I-don't-know-how-long trying to figure out what tickets we need, how much they're going to cost, blah, blah, blah ... finally the little dude came out of his booth and helped us out. Em-barr-assing!
Anyway, after a not terribly long ride on the metro, we arrived at the DC mall and made our way to the Museum of Natural History. Right in the front door, we were greeted by a giant replica of an African elephant, which resulted in Sierra continually making elephant noises from the carrier on my back.
The museum is huge and there was no way that we could have taken it all in during the just over 3 hours that we were there, but we did out best and we saw a lot of really awesome things. We spent over the first hour in a massive exhibit on the first floor that was filled with an amazing amounts of information about the history of earth, fossils, and how evolution happens, including some of its driving forces.
We headed upstairs to see the Hope Diamond, which was certainly impressive, but I was admittedly underwhelmed. Sure, it was shiney and all, but the rest of the geology exhibit was so much cooler!! There was an amazing array of rocks, crystals, in all different colors and forms.
We headed over to the butterflies and plants area where we looked at some super crazy cool creepy-crawlies. There was a staff person out there with several insects that we could hold/touch and Jason and I commented on the Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches. The woman was surprised we knew what they were. Jason and I both held this huge, beautiful, slow-moving grasshopper that apparently leaves in the Everglades where it is not thought to be so beautiful.
There was a display that had buttons you could push and hear different insect and animal sounds (cicada, cricket, tree frog, etc.) and Sierra had a lot of fun with that. 
There was also a replica of those giant African ant colonies with a tunnel through it. 
I was totally grossed out by the giant centipede, which Jason thought was funny, but it's fine, I got my payback in the next room, which was full of snakes. Ha!Before leaving, we wandered through the photography exhibit, the colonial America area, and made a too short trip through the Deep Sea exhibit. There was preserved giant squid that was 11 meters long!! C-razy! Whales hung from the ceiling and we saw the huge jaws of a Great White Shark (yikes!). A fish tank with live ocean fish finished off our trip and we were on our way home.
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