The main reason I went to Washington, D.C., was to spend some time working with colleagues here, on the beautiful treed campus of the Carnegie Institution of Washington's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, located in northwest Washington, near the Friendship Heights Metro station.
 

The Carnegie-DTM administration building.
 

In the front entrance of the administration building is a lovely model of the Carnegie, a yacht built of non-magnetic materials and used to survey the Earth's magnetic field.
 

Washington's Chinatown is really tiny (this block of restaurants seems to be about all there is), but the Friendship Archway over the road (middle left background) is as ornate as any.
 

A wall of silk flowers at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. The Smithsonian Institution is to be commended for displaying so many historical treasures to the public, free of charge, through its network of Museums.
 

The National Air and Space Museum entrance. They've got the ambience of an early 21st century airport down pat. Look at all those metal detectors, x-ray machines, and security personnel checking every visitor coming into the museum! The security checkpoints even come complete with long lineups.
 

The NASM lobby houses three retrieved space capsules. There are scorch marks radiating out on the bottom where the heat shielding burnt away on re-entry. They call these ships space capsules for a very good reason!
 

The NASM's galleries were packed full of aircraft, but one of the most admired was this, the 1903 Wright Flyer, the Wright brothers' first successful powered aircraft, most recently restored in 1985.
 

A view eastwards along the National Mall towards the Capitol.
 

A view westwards along the National Mall towards the Washington Monument.  See also the picture from closer up below.
 

I didn't know that the Washington Monument was such a gargantuan chunk of stone!  Look at those teensy little cars and flagpoles ringed round the base.  Read about how big the monument is here.  Unfortunately, that fence around the site is ugly;  they're using it to control access to the monument in conjunction with ticket kiosks. You can see two security personnel walking along the path on the right.
 

The White House as seen from just outside the Washington Monument fence.
 

The north facade of the White House.  There were plenty of police cars parked on the street outside.  Just off camera to the right was a nuclear weapons protester.
 

Pierre L'Enfant designed Washington with a set of canals for transportation, an alternative to the poor quality roads of the past.  The canals were not as valuable as had been hoped, and were eventually filled in.  This picture shows the lock keeper's house across the intersection, at the corner of Constitution & 17th.
 

It was very windy on October 15th, the day I left.  The many reflecting pools of the National Mall were whipped into a whitecapped frenzy by the wind.  I certainly couldn't see any reflections in this pool!
 

Link to: U of T Graduate Astronomy Students Association