I was actually expecting granddaughter to be knocking on our door by now (8:45 a.m.), but she did expend a lot of energy yesterday. Today’s plan is for the kids to have a “date day” as we take granddaughter to the Air and Space Museum annex near Dulles. That’s the reason for staying on this side of D.C. For those not familiar with it, the official name is the Smithsonian Institution Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. The Air and Space Museum in D.C. has far more items than they can display and there are physical issues with being able to expand. Many years – okay, decades ago – there was the idea to build an annex out close to Dulles where a facility could be constructed to hold the famous SR-71 – the “Blackbird” supersonic spy plane and even a space shuttle. That was obviously a major effort. I don’t recall now when it opened, but the kids have visited it once and Hubby has wanted to for quite some time. There are of course restrictions now as to capacity, so tickets are issued for timed entries. We’re at 10:30 so no one had to rush around. Will report after.

Good exhibits even with a number of really cool ones closed because of COVID restrictions. Kept granddaughter’s attention for 1.5 hours and the trip through the museum shop was reasonable. In discussing potential careers like engineers, astronauts, etc., learned granddaughter’s intent is to be a vet so she can take care of puppies and llamas.

Moving on to next unexpected travel irritant. Turns out there is no housekeeping. Process is beds don’t get changed (not an issue as we take that option anyway when it’s only a few days), towels can be delivered when you ask for them as are other amenities. Trash is to be placed outside and is picked up. No actual cleaning provided until after checkout. In sorting through that logic, it would have been nice to have been informed of this on their website before booking or certainly as least when we checked in.