Dropping in on an old friend

Right-click the thumbnail to view the full-size image.I would never go to Washington D.C. without finding a way to work in a visit to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. There are so many old friends to visit:

• The Apollo 11 command module Columbia;
• LM-2, one of only three unused, flight-ready Apollo Lunar Modules in the world;
• No fewer than four A7L spacesuits that actually walked on the moon, including the first (Neil Armstrong's) and the last (Eugene Cernan's);
• One of only two surviving examples in the world of the Macchi C.202 Folgore, a WW2 Italian fighter that looks like something out of a Hayao Miyazaki film come to life;

… and so many more.

But the trip would never be complete without a visit to the U.S.S. Enterprise shooting prop from the 1960s Star Trek series. It's located in a glass case on the lower level of the gift shop. It was worth the cacaphone and physical assault of misbehaving Spring Break schoolkids to spend a few minutes with the original starship of my youth.