(Insert Spy Music Here)

Tuesday was a day with a "security" theme. I started out with a trip to the Pentagon, scheduled by my my friendly Senator Kit Bond's office. I went through quite a bit of security there, and possibly the most interesting part was sitting in the waiting area while all of the military types circulated around, checked in their guests, etc. It was amazing the amount of civilian (looking) traffic in there! Finally our tour started, led by two young people (don't know their ranks, but one was navy and one was army!) in uniform. The Pentagon is the largest low-level office building around, and it is quite huge. We basically walked by some military history displays in the hallways and listened to some history of the building. It was built during WWII mainly from concrete, to conserve steel for the war effort. Thus, it's quite tough! We were told that on 9-11-01, those on the opposite side of the building from the attack didn't even know that anything was going on for some time.

We did visit the portion of the building that has been rebuilt since that attack. One whole side of the five sided shape was taken out, and we visited the memorial and chapel in that section. It listed the names of all of the people who died (including two children who were on the plane) and showed that each received a medal. A new medal was created after the attack for civilians who died, called something like the "defense of freedom" medal. Outside they have placed benches for the number of victims at the exact angle to the building that the plane came in when it crashed.

We did get to walk through the center courtyard, and saw a small building in the very center. We were told that during the Cold War, Soviet spy satellites detected a large number of people coming in and out of that building every day. They determined that it must be an entrance to an underground bunker of some sort, and pointed their missiles right at it. As it turns out, it is a snack bar (recently renovated from being simply a hot dog stand). They joked that it was the world's most dangerous hot dog stand and nicknamed it ground zero.

Overall, the tour was not exceptional, but it was interesting in its own way just to be in that very important building. There was certainly a lot going on there, and many people were bustling around. Of course no pictures were allowed, but there wasn't all that much to take a picture of anyway.

In the afternoon, I visited the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Portrait Gallery. There was a lot of folk art there (my impression of which is that it could have been made by any third grader I know--I was not impressed) but also many beautiful paintings and sculptures by American artists. I'll post a few of my favorites.

An Albert Beirstat landscape (he's pretty awesome in my opinion) of the Sierra Nevadas. It filled its own room.

Some striking stained glass. I've already forgotten the artist, but it was called Peonies and Peacocks I and II.

Look very closely...this spells something out. I was impressed!

The portrait of Lincoln used for the penny. One of many, many portraits of presidents and more.

This was extremely cool, even though I am usually not that into modern art. It is huge, in its own room, and each state is filled with TV monitors showing some sort of image or series of images or a video clip related to that state's culture. MO was showing a clip from Meet me in St. Louis. It was really impressive, and meaningful, and probably took quite a bit of skill to create.

Finally, in the evening Adam met me across the street at the International Spy Museum. It was full of actual spy equipment and information--not fake movie stuff (although there was a section about that) but real items the CIA, KGB, etc. used in the last century. It was pretty cool! There was also quite a bit of info on how to be a spy (I don't think I'd do too well), the history of espionage dating from Biblical times, and codes and code-breakers during WWII and beyond. I learned quite a bit, and we both enjoyed it. We had dinner at a brewery restaurant across the street and met up with one of Adam's roommates and friends from college, so we had a good visit and nice evening all around.