Washington DC - Day 3

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Today was the day to "get cultured" at the National Gallery of Art. As we are discovering, most of these buildings in DC are just a tad on the large size and somewhere between ornate and grandiose. We started with a docent led tour of the old art in the collection. Many by painters I probably should know. I survived and Chris enjoyed it (especially the Monet and Renoir collections).

Main Lobby of Art Museum

Daniel and the Lion Den

Dome of Art Gallery

We stopped in the underground cafeteria between the old building and modern building for lunch. The food was okay and only slightly over priced. When we got to the modern art building, we found a tour was just starting so we decided to join in and at least hear a bit about the building and some of it's artwork. The modern art was generally different but I guess it was just a bit more interesting to me than the paintings from centuries ago.

Wall of Tunnel Between Old and New Art Galleries

Colorful "Painting?"

900 Pound Mobile Hanging in Gallery

More Modern Art

Next stop was the Natural History Museum. We were looking forward to this one and although we found it to be enjoyable, we may have been starting to grow weary of all this culture. I suspect that the many bus loads of kids running around didn't help with our view of the museum. If we make it back here someday, we should try this one out earlier in our stay.

Triceratops

T-Rex

Elephant in the Lobby

We eventually wandered over to the south side of the White House. There are a couple virtual caches that are right near the best view of place. As we approached, we were surprised to see many people - well over 100. It took us quite some time to work our way over to get to the one small feature with information plaque we needed to complete this virtual cache. We barely got there when a couple secret service guys on bikes came over blowing whistles and telling everybody to put down your cameras or phones and disperse. It wasn't clear what was going on, but it was clear they were quite serious. After we got out, they put up a few barriers and closed that area off.

White House Photo Before Eviction

Second Division Memorial

Another Ornate Government Building