Smithsonian Day One
At the Udvar-Hazy Center, just south of Dulles Airport.
They hand out this nice printed guide to what-all is displayed, and it is the absolute bees knees for keeping track of what you've taken pictures of, as long as you don't repeat any numbers. I got about 74 pictures taken before my camera battery died. And I had not brought along the spare. Oh, well; I always knew it would take me two days to 'do' this facility. I grabbed some McLunch [the only flavor their food court offered], bought a ticket to see the IMAX movie "A Beautiful Planet", and went shopping at the Museum Store.
I'd heard the producer of "A Beautiful Planet" being interviewed on one of the Weather Channel's talk shows, and while I was interested, I was not too sure about whether I could watch a 3-D movie effectively, given that my brain doesn't really fuse the two images coming from my eyes. But I had an afternoon to fill, so I gave it a try.
The first good news is, that the entire back row is reserved for folks with mobility impairments, so I was able to score the catbird seat: right smack in the middle of that row. Settling the goggles they issue you over my own glasses took a couple of tries, but I *was* able to get at least some of that "comin' right at ya" effect. Without the goggles, I saw doubled images. With only the goggles, I saw fuzzy images.
At the end of the usual museum day, this particular IMAX also shows Hollywood movies, and the current one is the newest Tarzan flick, "The Legend of Tarzan". I just saw someone on Facebook giving it a glowing review, so I may be tempted to watch it once I've either killed both of my camera-batteries or run out of airplanes to photograph tomorrow.
They hand out this nice printed guide to what-all is displayed, and it is the absolute bees knees for keeping track of what you've taken pictures of, as long as you don't repeat any numbers. I got about 74 pictures taken before my camera battery died. And I had not brought along the spare. Oh, well; I always knew it would take me two days to 'do' this facility. I grabbed some McLunch [the only flavor their food court offered], bought a ticket to see the IMAX movie "A Beautiful Planet", and went shopping at the Museum Store.
I'd heard the producer of "A Beautiful Planet" being interviewed on one of the Weather Channel's talk shows, and while I was interested, I was not too sure about whether I could watch a 3-D movie effectively, given that my brain doesn't really fuse the two images coming from my eyes. But I had an afternoon to fill, so I gave it a try.
The first good news is, that the entire back row is reserved for folks with mobility impairments, so I was able to score the catbird seat: right smack in the middle of that row. Settling the goggles they issue you over my own glasses took a couple of tries, but I *was* able to get at least some of that "comin' right at ya" effect. Without the goggles, I saw doubled images. With only the goggles, I saw fuzzy images.
At the end of the usual museum day, this particular IMAX also shows Hollywood movies, and the current one is the newest Tarzan flick, "The Legend of Tarzan". I just saw someone on Facebook giving it a glowing review, so I may be tempted to watch it once I've either killed both of my camera-batteries or run out of airplanes to photograph tomorrow.