I posed a question on our Alexandria day asking “How do the blind of America cross the road?” as there didn’t seem to be any audio feedback. Our eyes and ears on the ground (👋Angela) got in touch to say that if you hold the crosswalk button long enough, it tells you which street you’re on. Turns out that if you keep your hand on the button, it also vibrates when it is time to cross. So not as bad as first feared, but not every crossing has a button, so I’m not sure what happens in those instances.
Udvar-Hazy
We’d decided today to head out back towards the airport and visit the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. The name doesn’t really tell you what the place is but it is actually the big brother of the National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall. I had assumed that Steven F. Udvar-Hazy was some astronaut or aviator that I’d not heard of but turned out to be the person that put up the $65M needed to build the museum!
When we’d been to the National Air and Space Museum on the Mall, we’d come away disappointed as there didn’t seem to be much there. The space is small, meaning it can’t house large exhibits, and any they do show have to be dismantled and driven there. The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center suffers from none of those problems. It is an absolutely massive space, covering two hangars, and is connected to Dulles Airport, so any acquisitions can be flown straight in.
The museum is well laid out with a number of walkways at various different levels, allowing you to see the planes from both ground level and above. To give you an idea of the size of the place, it houses an Air France Concorde, the Enola Gay (Boeing B-29), a Boeing 707, and my personal favourite, the space shuttle Discovery. The latter was the highlight for me as it is so significant in manned space flight. I would have loved to have seen inside it but sadly that wasn’t possible.
The place reminded me of the Berkshire Museum of Aviation in cramming as much in as possible, but after that, the similarities ceased!
