American History Museum- At Last!

The American History Museum has finally reopened after doing some renovations and re-doing the star spangled banner exhibit. Out of all the Smithsonians I thought this one was going to be the best and one of my favorites. While it did have some really neat parts to it, Alex and I agreed that it lacked "direction" and "cohesion". The new Star Spangled Banner exhibit is amazing. The flag is gorgeous (in a sense that it is amazing that it has been preserved!) The flag used to be hanging on a wall, but it apparently was rapidly deteriorating so a new exhibit was created to make sure it was preserved correctly.

Another thing I found about the museum, is that it was very wordy. There seemed to be more to read than things to see. I was incredibly moved by the president exhibit. They just made an update to the presidential timeline that gave me chills to see.

In this exhibit they had Lincoln's top hat and a very moving exhibit on the presidents who have been assassinated.

Some other highlights were: Dumbo the elephant from Disneyland, Kermit the Frog, Oscar the Grouch, Dorthy's Ruby slippers (size 5!), and some neat Idaho references.

One of my favorite things was the transportation exhibit. There were train, cars, buses, etc. all inside this awesome display area. But my absolute favorite was a display with a car and a guy who tried to drive across the US. When he was in Idaho he picked up a dog, and the dog wore....GOGGLES!