Photos from Washington, DC! Part 3

Photos, finally! Did I mention that I'm really busy? Here are the photos from the Natural History Museum in Washington, DC. After Obama's inauguration we worked our way through the crowd and into the museum to warm up our frozen feet.

This is the main hall of the museum with the entrance from the Mall off on the right. Everyone had to come through metal detectors and have their bags searched. I tried to capture how many people were in the museum- it was so crowded!

The people on the right were all lined up to get food from the cafe. The cafe isn't even close to being in this photo. Cool dinos, huh?

There were people sleeping all over the museum. Seriously. Everywhere. Maybe these were some of the people who got there at 4 am or maybe they didn't sleep at all.

Some primates in front of the other primates.

These adorable twin boys were learning about spiders in the insect zoo. Perhaps they should consider renaming it the arthropod zoo considering how many non-insects where there? Or the insects & allies zoo?


It just so happens that Tuesdays are free admission days for the butterfly house at the museum, so we really warmed up in the hot, humid butterfly haven. That's a closeup of a butterfly wing (above).

At this time of year, nearly all of the butterflies in Northern hemisphere butterfly houses are from the tropics. Butterfly farming can be a significant source of income for subsistence farmers in developing countries. They raise the caterpillars, then the chrysalides (pupae) are shipped to butterfly houses all over the world.
This butterfly landed on my backpack.

Rocks & minerals are so awesome. I think I could've easily been a geologist if just a few things in my life happened differently.This tiger is intimidatingly mounted to pounce on you. This is just one example of the phenomenal taxidermy in the mammal hall.

We stayed at the museum for a couple of hours to wait for the crowd to disperse but the parade was still going on so the area downtown was still busy. All of these unfortunate people were waiting to get on the metro. The line wasn't moving at all. We kept walking and just two blocks down we got in without any wait at all. Our motto of the day was "don't be sheep." It worked out well.

Finally, if you haven't see this amazing photo, you really must go check it out. Click around. Zoom in. Unfortunately, we're behind that camera on the right. Thanks to Kent from Uncommon Ground for the tip.