Memorial Day Festivities

Did everyone have an awesome Memorial Day?? I sure did! In addition to having the day off of work {which is awesome in itself} we traveled to Maryland to visit the in-laws. See it was my SIL, Amy, birthday and we came to celebrate!

In all honesty, we took this entire week of for vaca and have a lot of activities planned. Amy's b-day kicks off the festivities. ;) What did we do? We went to the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum. Now I'm not usually a person for museums, in fact I typically only like art museums, but it was all about Amy so we went where she wanted to go. It actually ended up being pretty cool!

We saw the plan that was used in transformers, the stealth Lockheed Blackbird. Don't remember which plane that was? Here's a video from the Smithsonian that shows clips of when the movie was actually in the museum.

How cool is that? The video was actually taken in the museum. There were tons of Transformer type items on display.

But here's the actual plane on display. The pictures don't do it justice, the plan is ginormous!

So I learned some pretty cool stuff regarding this plane. Did you know that there is no reconnaissance aircraft in history that has operated globally in more hostile airspace than the Lockheed Blackbird? It's the world's fastest jet-propelled aircraft! On its last flight Lt. Col. Ed Yielding and Lt. Col. Joseph Vida set a speed record by flying from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., in 1 hour, 4 minutes, and 20 seconds, averaging 3,418 kilometers (2,124 miles) per hour! Let's take a moment to think about how fast that is......WHEW! That's freakin' fast. And at the conclusion, they landed at Washington-Dulles International Airport and turned the airplane over to the Smithsonian.

I also happen to find this guy pretty fascinating. It's a flying machine designed for one person & he/she would lean {that's right, LEAN} in the direction you want to go & the machine will go that way!

Here's the family during our activities at the museum. Some were willing participants of the camera and some {hubby} were not. Oh well! ;)

The entire place had airplanes everywhere, including the ceilings. We also caught an iMAX showing of the Hubble Telescope, which was pretty cool. And continuing the space mention, there was an entire section dedicated to space travel. Including...

Yup, that's right. The discovery! :)

All-in-all it was a pretty terrific day. For dinner my wonderful mother-in-law made Dr. Pepper soaked ribs {that's right, Dr. Pepper soaked} and her homemade macaroni salad. All I have to say is I'm thankful (in many ways) for my sister-in-law Amy being born. ;)

So what did you do for Memorial Day?