Udvar-Hazy Center

This morning I rode the Metro to the Air and Space Museum and caught a shuttle bus from there to the museum's new annex near Dulles Airport, called the Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center.  It's basically a big hangar full of planes and spaceships that didn't fit in the main museum.  More informative exhibits are being built, but for now most of the vehicles have only a small panel to describe them.  Even with the enormous new space, the planes are so close together -- and lit from so many directions -- that it's difficult to get a camera angle without a spotlight or another plane in the way.  But the planes are still mighty impressive -- like the last SR-71 Blackbird and Concorde to fly, or the Space Shuttle Enterprise, or a Spacelab module that flew 9 missions.

My high-school friend Joe came and picked me up from the museum for lunch.  He lives and works near Dulles, so it made more sense for us to meet at the museum than in DC.  He's working for America Online.