Air, Space, and the Quest for the Magic Burrito

I know what you’re thinking.

This is gonna be epic.

…Or maybe you weren’t thinking that.

 

That’s okay. But I’m thinking it was pretty awesome, if not epic ;)

At any rate, we went on an adventure today. Several, in fact. Our first was the quest for the Magic Burrito. Wait, let me back up. Our plans for today involved going down to the Dulles Area to go to the ‘other’ Air and Space Museum that the Smithsonian has down there. (I know, did YOU know about that one?! John’s cousin told us about it – AND it has a space shuttle. Like, one that has actually been to space. Like the one we saw over Christmas in CA) Since we were leaving in the late morning, we knew we would be stopping somewhere for lunch (since, you know, I eat as much as the average sloth these days). So we decided on Chipotle Mexican Grill in Tyson’s Corner, since it was on the way. So we mapped it out on Google Maps and printed it. And we have the GPS. So we figure we had this in the bag.

False.

First of all, our GPS is so old, the address wasn’t even in the map database. But that was okay, because we brought our Google directions with us as a back up for this very possibility. We followed the directions…and ended up in the middle of an intersection. Um. What? Tyson’s Corner has a HUGE mall, so we finally found our way into the mall parking lot, with the idea that it would be in there somewhere (after, of course, trying every other direction of the intersection…). We read the signs in the parking lot elevator and they said there was a food court on the 3rd level. Perfect. It has to be there.

Wrong.

After checking the directory, the Chipotle was actually located back down on the first level. You know, where we had just parked. Figures. We finally found it and even beat the lunch rush. We dubbed our adventure the quest for the Magic Burrito. And victory had never tasted so good. The burrito was awesome too.

After eating our magic burritos, we got back in the car to head over to the Air and Space Museum. Thankfully, we didn’t have any problems getting over there. The museum was really cool!John was so excited to see all the planes!
This is the blackbird. A sneaky stealth plane. And it was ginormous.
This is me being a plane before I actually posed for the following picture. I did not know John had gotten it on camera ;)
Oh, there we go ;)

There were sooo many planes. I think one of the museum people said that there were over 200. I believe it. We almost didn’t know where to start when we got there! One of John’s favorites was the Enola Gay. I learned from John that the Enola Gay is the aircraft that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in World War II. John amazes me with his seemingly random knowledge of so many different things. He could name several aircraft without seeing the helpful plaques and I’m just walking around wondering “how the heck does he know that?!”. I was very impressed. :)

And of course, we saw the space shuttle. This one is named Discovery. The one we saw in CA was the Endeavor. We’re wondering where the other ones are (besides the ones that exploded, of course). We want to see them all! ;)

And look who I found in the Space Hangar?!

Why yes, that IS an R2-D2 mailbox! Apparently in 2007, for the 30th anniversary of Star Wars, there was at least one of these in all 50 states! How did I not know about this?! This one was signed by the Post Master General and George Lucas. Sweet.

This is a very tiny ‘recreational’ plane. Cool, huh?

We walked around a little bit more and went up to the observation deck (and forgot to take any pictures) where we could see Dulles Airport and we watched several planes land while we were up there. That was really cool. We were both totally worn out by then, so it was about time to go home.

We must have been a little too worn out, because neither of us noticed that we completely missed the exit for the freeway that took us home until we were about 20 miles too far…and going in the opposite direction. (If you’ve ever driven I-495, you’ll understand how this is possible…it’s a big circle…) Oops. That makes for another adventure! We made it back about 45 minutes later than we planned, but hey, we made it and we are going to be lounge lizards for the rest of the night.

And after such a long and fun day, I’m thinking some ice cream is in order.