Museum

Half Price Tickets to the National Building Museum

National Building Museum Great Hall
The Great Hall
National Building Museum

My favorite museum gift shop in all of Washington, DC is the bookstore and gift shop at the National Building Museum.

The shop features books on architecture, design and city planning, but you can also find a large selection of fun and funky stationary items, jewelry, accessories, kitchenware, and more.  The selection of children’s toys is especially terrific!

When my daughter was an active toddler, the National Building Museum was one of my favorite places to visit on a rainy day.  There are lots of stairs to climb, and long corridors to explore, and even an indoor fountain.

These days, there is an ongoing Play, Work, Build exhibit for kids aged 2 to 6 years old.

Half Price Tickets to the National Building Museum

You don’t have to pay admission to visit the museum gift shop, cafe, or the colossal Great Hall, but if you want to see the exhibits, you must buy a ticket.

National Building Museum
National Building Museum
The Pension Building

Admission is normally $8 per adult, $5 for youth, students and seniors, or $3 per person if you only want to visit the kids’ Building Zone.

TravelZoo is offering half priced tickets to visit the exhibitions at National Building Museum.

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Discounted Admission to the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC

Discount Tickets to International Spy MuseumWith so many free museums in Washington DC, it is easy to overlook those attractions that charge admission.

That’s why the International Spy Museum, which has one of the most creative marketing departments out there, has partnered with Metro to provide transit users a discount on admission.

Spy Museum Discount Admission

Just show your Metro SmarTrip® card and receive $7 off  the normal admission price of $21.

The offer is valid through March 21, 2014, and cannot be combined with other promotions.

Metro Smart Spy Twitter Contest

While you’re at it:

Every week @intlspymuseum and @wmata will tweet a clue about a cloak and dagger site on the rail system.Spy Museum Tweet Up Contest

Once you find the secret site, tweet a selfie with the photo clue and #metrosmartspy.

This will officially enter you in a contest, with a chance to win an unspecified spy prize.

Hey folks, I could not find any actual entrants into this contest.  It sounds like fun and it looks like you’d have a great chance at winning!

Family Days at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum

Open House at the Udvar-Hazy Center
Open House at the Udvar-Hazy Center

Residents of  Washington, DC and visitors alike have access to the vast cultural opportunities of the Smithsonian Institution, most of which are free.  Last month, we took part in the first ever open house of the restoration hangar at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center.

This was a really fun event that is likely to be repeated every January henceforth.  Not only did we get to see areas of the museum that are normally off-limits to visitors, but we also got to catch up on newer features of the museum like the space hangar.

My favorite part was going up in the control tower, which offers a fantastic view of the runways at Dulles International Airport (IAD).  It was a blast!

The second Saturday of each month at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center from 10 am – 3 pm. is Super Science Saturday!

African American Pioneers in Aviation Family Day

 

The museum has also scheduled a series of Heritage Family Days at their downtown location on the National Mall, as well as at the Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia.   Family Days offer a wide variety of hands-on activities, presentations, and opportunities to meet pilots, astronauts, and scientists.

Here is the line-up of upcoming programs:

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Behind-the-Scenes at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum: The Udvar-Hazy Open House

Smithsonian Air and Space Museum
Smithsonian Air and Space Museum

I love behind-the-scenes tours at museums and was lucky enough to visit the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum’s Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration, and Storage Facility in Silver Hill, Maryland many years ago.

Specialists were in the process of preparing the Enola Gay for exhibit and it was really fascinating to hear their take on the controversial exhibit and to observe them working.

Much of the museum’s restoration work has now moved to the Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, near Dulles International Airport.

This Saturday, January 25, 2014, in honor of the tenth anniversary of the Udvar-Hazy Center of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, there will be the first ever open house.

The highlight of the open house will be a tour of the Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hanger, where the Curtiss SB2C-5 Helldiver, flown in World War II, is undergoing restoration.

Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar
Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar

Museum curators and other specialists will offer a behind-the scenes look at the Udvar-Hazy Center through presentations, hands-on activities, stories, and special tours about the collection and restoration projects.

The open house will showcase historic artifacts, documents, and works of art that are not on public display.  You will have the chance to see what it takes to collect, preserve, and restore historic aircraft and spaceships.

Here are the details:

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Busting the Myths: New York City at Holiday Time

2013 Thanksgiving Day Parade
2013 Thanksgiving Day Parade

The holidays are the best time of the year to visit New York.  There’s extra energy in the city, and the holiday lights and decorations can be magical.  Not to mention the shopping!

We visited our family in New York over Thanksgiving — and took in the best of the holiday season.

Over the course of our visit, we managed to bust several pervasive myths about holiday time in New York City.

1.  You have to arrive at 6 a.m. to see the Thanksgiving Day parade

Everyone warned us that the parade route would be packed and if we wanted to get a spot we’d have to arrive very early.  We sauntered over to 6th avenue at 50th Street at 10 a.m. and had a great vantage point with Radio City Music Hall in the background.  We weren’t in the front row, but back where there was space to move around.

2.  The best shopping deals are on Black Friday

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Free Spielberg Films at the National Archives; Plus: Guastavino Vaulting

Steven Spielberg Film FestivalOne of the things I love best about living in Washington is easy access to cultural institutions — museums, embassies, parks, monuments, and libraries — all of which offer a plethora of free programs.In many Smithsonian museums and government buildings, there are beautiful auditoriums that present concerts, lectures, and film — often free to the public.

The William G. McGowen Theater, deep inside the National Archives building on Constitution Ave., is a leading venue for the screening of documentary films.

This coming weekend, the National Archives will screen a number of Steven Spielberg films in a mini film festival honoring the director’s work, that runs November 15-18, 2013.  This free, public film festival will showcase four of Spielberg’s critically acclaimed films.

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Springtime in Hershey

Hershey Gardens Photo by Joel Shprentz
Hershey Gardens 

In April, we stopped in Hershey, Pennsylvania for a day to break up a road trip from New England to Virginia.  We had visited the amusement park ten years ago, and wanted to explore other three different attractions on this trip.

First up was the free tour of the fake “Chocolate Factory,” because we love corny rides, factory tours, and chocolate!

The Chocolate Factory is a Disney-style animated ride that tells the story of how chocolate is produced from the growing the cocoa beans to producing Hershey Kisses.  On a Saturday morning, we were able to walk right in without a wait. The ride in little carts through the “factory” was lots of fun. The ride ended with a free sample and let us off in a gigantic chocolate gift shop with all manner of Hershey candy.

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Las Vegas Neon Boneyard — Photo Essay of Times Gone By

The Neon Boneyard
The Neon Boneyard
Photo by Joel Shprentz

Without a doubt, the highlight of our visit to Las Vegas last year was the guided tour of the Neon Museum’s Boneyard.

The tour is actually a superb introduction to the very colorful history of Las Vegas.

The museum houses discarded neon and incandescent signs from Vegas’ glory days.

The museum’s limited funds allow for the restoration of only a few signs each year.

The restored signs are displayed in the downtown Las Vegas block known as the “Fremont Experience.”

The rest of the collection — a hodgepodge of more than 150 historic signs — is on display at a two acre lot known as “The Boneyard.”

Stardust Sign
Volunteer Docent Welcomes Visitors
Photo by Joel Shprentz

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Part 1: Reagan National Airport is an Art Deco Delight

The original Washington National Airport (DCA) Terminal building is an art deco masterpiece commissioned by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) in 1938 and completed in 1940.

If you have some time to spare on your next trip out of DCA in Washington, DC you should wander over to see the exhibit hall and the restoration of the historic terminal between Terminal A and Terminal B.

The wonderful art deco features have been lovingly restored by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. DCA is an Art Deco Delight The space now serves as a quiet retreat from the rest of the bustling airport.

There is an public exhibit area above the waiting room with historic photographs and artifacts from the art deco era. You can see glass balustrades and other examples of streamlined Art Deco ornamentation.

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