Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum ~ Udvar-Hazy Center

Did you know there are TWO Smithsonian Air & Space Museums?  Yeah, maybe my East Coast friends knew that, but we sure didn't!  Of course, there's the main facility on the National Mall in DC, but there is also a companion facility, the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia.  Someone from work mentioned to Garrett that this location houses the Discovery Space Shuttle..... so it was a done deal!  We made the hour+ drive out there for a family field trip on the MLK holiday last week.

This place was massive!  And you don't even have to be super into planes to be impressed with the collection!

I loved all the old aluminum planes.  I don't know why, they just were my favorite :)

That's a supersonic Concord the Kiddos are standing in front of!

I don't even know what this thing is ... but it says EXPERIMENTAL on the door ... so it's probably a good thing it's in retirement!

That huge plane is the B-29 'Enola Gay'. She dropped the first atomic weapon used in combat on Hiroshima, Japan.  yikes.  I'll be honest, it was weird seeing it.      

And here is when Kayla realized we would be eating McDonalds for lunch!  No joke.  

Most of the Smithsonians have nice cafes where you can eat a yummy sandwich.  But we were very surprised to find out that this one had the golden arches!  yuck.  I don't think Kayla has had a Happy Meal since she was maybe 2 .... and I'm certain Gavin has never {until now} eaten at a McDonalds!  ...... chick-fil-a is our preferred poison ;)

And here we have the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird.  "No reconnaissance aircraft in history has operated globally in more hostile airspace or with such complete impunity than the SR-71, the world's fastest jet-propelled aircraft." 

OR.  You might remember him as Jetfire in the Transformers 2 movie!

We had no idea that scene was filmed here!

And last, but not least ... we finally made it round to the Discovery Space Shuttle!

"The longest-serving orbiter, Discovery flew 39 times from 1984 through 2011 — more missions than any of its sister ships — spending altogether 365 days in space."

I mean.  This thing was huge!  One assumes a space shuttle is on the large side ... but I had no idea!

On our way out we hit up the observation tower.  The Museum neighbors Dulles airport and most days you can watch the planes land/take off.  But on this day the airport was using the furthest away field so we didn't see much :(.

So worth the drive out there!!