Washington DC - 2026 (1)

Visiting Washington DC was a first for both Ernie and I. We stayed in the FamCamp on Joint Base Andrews. It is a very busy base and we saw Marine One and Marine Two fly over many times.

Our travel into Washington DC each day involved a short drive to the Branch Ave Metro train station and usually under a 20 minute train ride to L'Enfant Plaza that put us a couple (large) blocks to the National Mall. 

On our first trip, it took us a few minutes to figure out the best way to get around the metro. We weren't afraid to ask for help and got some really good advice from an attendant to go to the Metro office and get a Senior Metro card which gives us half off any train fare.

Our first stop was the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. So many cool things to look at and I took a ton of pictures. I will share a few so this blog doesn't go on forever. 

For all my Wisconsin friends and family, we are represented in the museum. 😀

This astronaut was built with all Lego's, pretty cool!

That's a lot of bricks!! 😮

The Hubble

This was a whole wall mural. It was hard to get it one picture so I broke into three.

Our next stop was the Museum of the Bible. Totally impressed with this museum. It is not part of the Smithsonian free museums but it was totally worth the tickets!

This is the Megiddo Mosaic. It is the foundations of the early church from a time before Christianity was legally recognized by the Roman Empire.

On the 3rd floor we saw the The Stories of The Bible. We were not allowed to take any pictures or videos, it was phenomenal! They told us when we enter the presentation would be 30 minutes. At first I thought it was going to be 30 minutes sitting on a bench but a couple minutes in we were on a journey of the Hebrew Bible Experience walking through significant narratives such as Noah's Ark, the burning bush and Passover. Next was the New Testament Experience where we explore the story of Jesus and other narratives from the New Testament. The last section was The World of Jesus of Nazareth. In the first-century Nazareth, we saw the streets, the sights and the villagers. I would definitely recommend this to everyone.

The 4th floor was the History of the Bible. Here you can discover the remarkable history of the Bible through more than 600 artifacts, including early New Testament papyri, Torah Scrolls, illuminated manuscripts and rare printed Bibles. 

The statues were amazing! 

Paul and Peter the Apostles

Moses

Jesus the Christ

Interesting information I read about in the museum

In June of 2026, as the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence approached, a special Bible arrived at the Museum of the Bible's digitization lab. This Bible was a World War II Heart Shield Bible. The Bible had a metallic cover and was advertised as not just a way for soldiers to bring the Bible with them to the battlefield but also as a means of protecting them.

In the years of 1941 and 1942, as the US started to deploy troops to Europe and the Pacific Theater, many soldiers received government-sanctioned Bibles. These Bibles, featuring the metal covers, were placed in the soldier's upper left pocket, directly over the heart. While Scripture was believed to offer spiritual protection, the metal cover was intended to provide physical protection, with the potential to stop bullets. The thin metal was generally ineffective against high-velocity projectiles, although it occasionally succeeded.

The preservation and showcasing of Heart Shield Bibles are important not only to ensure these artifacts do not get lost in the whispers of the past put also to humanize those who carried them.