Day 1: Virginia Air and Space Museum

I didn't count yesterday as "Day 1," since we spent the entire day in the car getting down here.  Traffic was terrible and that coupled with rain and extreme fog, made for an interesting all-day commute to Williamsburg,Virginia from Pennsylvania.  But, we arrived safely, so that is all that matters and were able to get some much needed rest for our first full day of "seeing the sights."  There is SO much to see and do around here, we won't possibly be able to see it all in the few days we will be here.  I guess that will be an incentive to come again.

Today, we visited the Virginia Air and Space Museum, which is the official visitor center of NASA's experimental facility at Langley and of Langley AFB.  Just that in itself is totally cool!  :-)

It is a completely hands-on facility where my kids were able to come face-to-face with the actual Apollo 12 Command Module (we couldn't believe that three grown men had to work, eat and sleep in that thing for 10 days!) that came back from the moon in 1969,

a moon rock

They were flight deck controllers

climbed aboard fighter jets

and "piloted" a DC-9.

They flew in a simulator

and our oldest enjoyed flying every type of simulator in the museum!

We took a 180-day journey to Mars

and I learned that I would only weigh about 6 pounds on Pluto!  Yay, Pluto!  And they don't even want you to be a planet anymore.  ;-)

It was a really fun day at the museum.  The kids (and the grownups) learned so much and had fun learning about it.  The best part was that the museum had reciprocity with a science museum to which we already hold a membership, so we didn't have to pay admission.  How great is that?!  I also took a visit into the Educator's Gallery.  To any of my teacher friends who are reading this, please contact me for information.  NASA offers limitless resources to teachers (including home-educators!!!).  I came home with amazing posters, lithographs, lesson plans, etc. for free!!  If I had more time, I would have been able to record space flights and documentaries from their extensive library, as well.  I plan on emailing them for even more resources.  It is all free through NASA's educational program.  Wow!  An awesome end to an awesome day!