American History Museum

Like many boys his age, Sam is loving trains. So Elise and I decided on a family adventure to the American History Museum to see the train exhibit (we had also heard that they have a good kids area). We hopped on the Metro which was part of the adventure as Sam loves riding the train...as long as he is not about to be motion sick which was a issue on the ride home and part of the reason we decided to get off a stop early and hoof it the rest of the way home.

As I mentioned above, Sam is a huge fan of trains. Sam is, emphatically, not a fan of statues.

So, what's wrong with this picture...?

...it's filled with statues. You may have heard about our experience at the Lincoln Memorial. Well, the problem with the train exhibit was, yes, there were a ton of really cool trains, but the exhibit was populated by these vaguely humanoid, white-faced stone people. Yeah, they were creepy. I'd probably be scared too, if I were 2 and 1/2. (We had the problem again at Lululemon Athletica where the mannequins are either headless or bodyless face with no eyes, noses or mouths....you fail to appreciate or even notice how unhuman these statues are until you appreciate them through the eyes of a small, but keenly observant, boy.)

We quickly vacated the train exhibit. Elise stuck her head into the replica of Julia Child's kitchen while Sam and Pete and I played with Lincoln Logs. We watched a scientist in the Spark lab make bubbles of carbon dioxide in a beaker (cool!). Outside, dad treated to ice cream sandwiches on the sidewalk before we chased squirrels and pigeons around the Mall and took the train home.