I blogged yesterday about our trip to DC. Today we went back. Today, we went to church at Capitol Hill Baptist Church, the Air and Space Museum, the Museum of Natural History, and The National Archives. Again, I'll post the pictures later on (I forgot the stuff to take the pictures off the camera with me).
Capitol Hill Baptist Church
Pastor Zbiden recommended this church when he found I was going to be in DC. I looked it up online, and got interested. Capitol Hill Baptist is a Southern Baptist church that, from what I can tell, is a good conservative Bible believing church (the website has more information on their history). There was a guest speaker today–a missionary from the International Mission Board. How interesting…I just got hired by the IMB and I have to come all the way to DC to see one :^)
He spoke today on Suffering for Christ. His text was II Timothy 1:1-12. The message was excellent. The rest of the worship service was good too. The church seems to have a heart for God and His will.
Oh, Cyndi and I left in plent of time to get there for the service (we left the hotel at 9am); however, we were getting off the metro the time we wanted to be at the service. The goofy metro was running very very late today. On our way from the metro stop, we walked by the Library of COngress and the Supreme Court building. Anyway, back to the point…on our way in, a nice lady suggested we would find more seats upstairs. We went up and found a seat. In a few minutes, she came up and set in front of us. After the service, we chit-chatted for a bit. She was very nice. She lived in the area and regularly attended CHBC. When we found this out, we asked about where to eat lunch. She pointed us in the right direction. Alessandra (SP??), thanks for the help this morning.
Air and Space Museum
Alessandra suggested heading to Pennsylvania Ave. where we would find lots of restaraunts. Well, it was hot again today in DC, so we decided to just quit walking at the Air and Space Museum. We were going here anyway, so we just stopped in and ate at the food court. We paid the airport prices for McDonalds (be prepared!), but we didn't have to walk all over tarnation.
In my opinion, the Air and Space Museum is the best of the Smithsonians. The displays are excellent, they have a wide variety of displays and aircraft, and the museum flows well. They have a good balance of static and interactive displays, and none of the goofy video/multimedia issues I wrote about yesterday with the Museum of American History.
I had heard they were supposed to be getting Spaceship One (the Burt Ratan space vehicle that won the X prize earlier this year). Well, they didn't have it, but everything else was top notch.
Museum of Natual History
Well, Cyndi and I both wanted to go see the Museum of Natural History. Cyndi wanted to see the Hope Diamond. I just wanted to make fun of the left-leaning slant of the museum.
The visit was ok. The MNH had most of the problems the MAH had. Primarily, it was hard to navigate through. It wasn't as hard, but it wasn't easy either. Most of the time, I found myself having to backtrack to see everything. Hey, here is a thought…I should make walking tour guides for the museums. That would be neat…I'll have to think about that.
The displays were mostly good and of good quality. The "millions of years" was prevalent everywhere. If I had the money, I'd give it to Answers in Genesis so they could build a museum to rival this one. Now, don't get me wrong…just as I don't think this goverment institution should push millions of years and evolution, I don't think they should push a literal six-day Genesis creation either. The goverment should be nutural. They should present the facts and possible explanations. Period. Then, people would get an unbiased view of the facts and be able to make up their own mind.
One thing that drove me nuts was the amount of pictures of the "natual" habitat from "millions of years" ago. Instead of being presented as an artists rendition of what people think everything may have looked like, they are presented as fact. The museum also had several "documentary" programs–at least that was what I called them–presenting the millions of years as fact.
All I thought of in the museum was the words to the AIG song:
Billions of dead things
Buried in rock layers
Laid down by water
All over the earth.
Well, there really was
A world wide flood
Just look at
The stoney curse
With billions of dead things
Buried in rock layers
Laid down by water
All over the earth.
National Archives
After tiring of the millions of years indoctrination for the skulls full of mush, we went to the National Archives. This was pretty neat. They have the originals for the Declaration of Independance, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and other founding documents. This was cool. Not much to say beyond that.
If you go, they are quick to point out that you don't have to wait in line to see the documents. It is interesting to watch everyone queue up to go through the display clickwise. If you go, you can usually walk right up to the displays and see the documents.