Eclectic Em: Air and Space Museum & Harpers Ferry Friday, May 11

This is the second day of our Washington D.C. trip. Day one of our trip can be found here. On Friday, May 11 we went to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and to Harpers Ferry. There were a lot of airplanes at the Air and Space Museum. I took a ton of pictures because after seeing ten I felt like I'd seen them all.


Some sort of bi-plane

The Enola Gay dropped the bomb on Hiroshima

The Concord Jet

Doug in front of the space shuttle Discovery

To get an idea of the scale of the Discovery, look at the bottom left of the picture. There are some stairs with a person wearing a blue shirt. They are just a speck. It was a huge shuttle.

The front of Discovery

While some people took a long time to read about every plane, Doug's sisters Mary and Diana and I took funny pictures of us holding up planes and even kissing one!

I'm strong enough to hold up a plane!

Diana kissing a shark plane

I really liked the silver planes

After the Air and Space Museum we made our way to Harpers Ferry in West Virginia. Harpers Ferry was the site of John Brown's raid. John Brown was an abolitionist who wanted to help slaves start an uprising in the South. He raided the armory at Harpers Ferry to gather guns and ammunition to distribute to the slaves to aid in their uprising. Brown and his men had to take refuge in the engine house adjacent to the armory because the townspeople were trying to stop him. Brown was eventually captured by Robert E. Lee and hanged for treason.

A painting of John Brown

The engine house where John Brown took refuge

Although he was hanged for treason, Brown was later viewed as a hero

During the Civil War Harpers Ferry was shuffled between the Union and the Confederates eight times.

It was a strategic location due to the railroad and the rivers

St. John's Episcopal Church was one of Harpers Ferry's five earliest churches. It served as a hospital and a barracks during the Civil War. It had a lot of damage, was rebuilt, then later abandoned for a new church elsewhere in town.

Ruins of St. John's Episcopal Church

St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church is a little ways below the ruins of the Episcopal Church. While we were driving to Harpers Ferry I looked across the river and saw this beautiful building and wished I could see it up close. I didn't know how close we were to our destination and was so excited when it ended up being part of the town.

St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church, Harpers Ferry West Virginia

The back and side of the church

Harpers Ferry is a very old town. It was established in 1763 and visited by Thomas Jefferson in 1783. Throughout the town there are remnants of old buildings. In a few places you could see where a house had been built right up against the building next to it. Some of the buildings from John Browns raid have been reduced to foundations.