Paddle Boats on the Potomac, and stuff.

This time around we got to stay in DC for a whole week inbetween Virginia Beach and Columbus. There is so much to do in our nation's capital that a week can seem short but since Brent's dad will be working there for at least another 6 months (possibly a year and a half...) we don't feel like we have to see everything all at once.
It was super hot pretty much the entire week we were there (I think every day was above 90) which made walking around a lot somewhat miserable, so we tried to stay inside as much as possible. Except for when we went paddle boating on the "poo-tomac" as we like to call it. It's pretty gross, but we had fun! You get to paddle around right in front of the Jefferson Memorial, which is pretty, and there are lots of ducks that like to swim around the boats.







Oh yeah, and the Washington Monument was on the other side of the river.





About five minutes after we got off the boats it started pouring rain, which was acutally quite refreshing after strenuous paddling in the 95 degree weather, seriously, I know it doesn't look hot, but Jane and I were dying trying to paddle those fatsos around. But we decided to take the party inside and the Natural History Museum was close by so we went for round two (round one was in July). I like to take it one wing at a time, so we focused on mammals.



For those of you enlightened people who believe in the theory of evolution, behold the mother of all mammals, Morganucodon oehleri (affectionately known as 'Morgie' at the museum):



Doesn't that make you proud to be placetal, lactating and hairy?? haha.

Anyways...
For those who don't know, Brent is deathly afraid of BEARS. He frequently has nightmares about being dragged out of his tent at night by one, or being surrounded by many bears and having to fight them off with sticks...or some variation on that theme. So I try to tease him about it whenever I get the chance, because he really isn't scared of too many things.



Somehow we ended up running into part of the 'world history' part or something...ok I have no idea what it was called, but they had some cool stuff, like this skull with a hole in it that I really thought was the work of a shotgun...until I actually read the explanation on the wall behind it in one of the photos I took. Turns out, it was a man made hole, but it was done on purpose, it's called Trephining or Trepaning (those of you who have read The Golden Compass may recognize the term) which was basically an old skool method for relieving intracranial pressure. Apparently there was very little sign of healing on this skull, meaning he died very shortly after his "treatment".



And last but not least, the COOLEST thing in the whole museum by FAR:



A Giant Squid!! Supposedly this was actually here the last time we went to the museum, but I must have walked right past it! Anyways, I did not miss it this time, and I can only hope that I get to see a real live one some day! I miss diving.