My first visit ever to Washington, D.C. happened when I was 6. Every summer my family would travel from Detroit back to the panhandle of Maryland to spend a week or two with my paternal (and only living) grandparents. In 1967 we tacked on a couple of days in Washington, D.C. actually staying with cousins in northern Virginia. We did the obligatory tour of the monuments and we spent time in one museum; Smithsonian's Natural History. We made only one major miscalculation: we didn't set aside enough time. And by the time we got to the Natural History Museum time was running out. At one point we were whisking ourselves so rapidly through the place that I couldn't take it! I had a meltdown--a full-fledged cry-fest right under the giant Blue Whale. And who could blame me? You take me to such an amazing place and then you only let me glance at the marvels inside?I don't remember what eventually pacified me. Perhaps the promise of a return visit some day. It wasn't something we ever did as a family again. It is; however, something I do often as an adult.
The thing that I remember most from that first frenetic visit was the gigantic elephant that stood in the foyer. And here is the really cool part. While it's the same taxidermied pachyderm raising his trunk over the visitors today, it's not even close to the same exhibit. It was my friend and former neighbor who oversaw the redesign of the elephant's current home--a dirt mound complete with sparse vegetation, a few species of indigenous birds, an African side-winder snake, even dung beetles! So here's some of what I discovered there today!
