Barking with the Spuds

Apparently, they were very pleased with their choice, since they were gone all day. Not only did they get to see the shuttle, they said there were airplanes everywhere. They were on the floor, on risers, and hanging from the rafters of "America's Hangar". There were airplane and helicopter engines of all kinds as well, and quite the nostalgic display of the computers that, until as recent as 1996, were controlling satellites and various space experiments. One had all of 128k of memory.

The center was huge and will be getting larger in a few years when they add on the restoration wing, where you will be able to watch the detailed restoration of airplanes and other future exhibits. The Udvar-Hazy Center houses 80% of the National Air and Space collection and Dad took photos of almost everything. A lot of the planes are one of a kind, the only one remaining that's known to exist and all were restored to nearly-new condition.

We, however, waited patiently and then not so patiently in the coach for them to return. Around 2:30 the stupid weather radio started going off every 2 minutes with this warning and that warning. It got really dark and very windy and you couldn't see past the rain coming down. At one point we lost power, so we didn't even have the TV to entertain us. Our tummies were really starting to hurt, too, and FINALLY the folks got back. Mom said they had tried a back way to avoid the interstate traffic that was slowed by all the rain. Trouble was, there aren't any good back ways and because of the storm the route they took had no working traffic lights and lots of downed power lines and trees. We were all glad to finally to get our dinner. Next time they need to leave us instructions on how to open the food cabinet so our tummies don't get so empty and hurt!