S M I T H S O N I A N   I N S T I T U T I O N
N A T U R A L   M U S E U M   O F   H I S T O R Y

Washington D.C.

It looks like I have only 1.5 hours to tour the Museum. Unfortunately, it's late in the year, and the Museum closes at 5:30pm instead of 7:30pm.

Into the front entrance I go. In the rotunda I see an enormous elephant. Supposedly it's the largest elephant ever captured. To set expectations, it's rather dark in the Museum, so henceforth, some of my pictures may be somewhat grainy, sorry.

The rotunda is quite impressive, from my vantage point I can easily see there are three floors to the Museum. Looking up I notice there are signs indicating what exhibits are on the second floor.

Since time is not on my side, I have to choose my exhibits carefully. Since I love dinosaurs, I choose to see them first. Upon entry I immediately find myself facing a multitude of fossils, including the very prevalent trilobite fossil. It must have been the world's pre-historic cockroach?