Wildlife

We saw our first raccoon! It was right outside, in the street, just about 20 yards from our house!! We were walking back on Saturday night after a nice meal in King Street Blues and a couple of beers in Murphy's Irish bar, and there was something standing stock still in the road. I thought at first it might have been someones dog (bit small) or a cat (too big) but when we drew level with it there was no mistaking what it was! It ran off pretty quickly - probably because I was screeching "Stephen - look! A Raccoon"!

We went for a bit of culture yesterday! We took a trip to the National Mall and went to two of the Smithsonian museums/galleries. We did Art first - the place is stuffed with paintings by Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, Turner, Whistler...a treasure trove! Even the building itself is a work of art! I was getting quite irritated though...people, rather than taking their time to admire these works of art, were doing a Whistler stop tour - nearly running from painting to painting taking pictures as they went - presumably so they could admire them later! I was irritated because they pretty much would shove you out of the way to take the picture, and also because these paintings are displayed in a temperature/humidity and light controlled atmosphere for a reason! Blasting them with a flash gun really doesn't do them much good! Philistine's!!!

We went from there across the Mall to the Air and Space Museum, which was absolutely jam packed with people!! Obviously Art isn't popular.... Anyway there are loads of fascinating items on display, including the Apollo 11 capsule (which is minuscule - you would never think it would carry 3 people!) and a lunar lander which was built for one of the later Apollo missions which never flew. All very interesting stuff!