You learn something new every day

As mentioned in the previous post, this weekend Tammy and I traveled to DC. One day was birdwatching, and the other was a visit to the National Mall. We did not really decide which museums to visit until that morning, but ended up checking out the National Museum of the American Indian, the United States Botanic Garden and the National Gallery of Art (West Building).

Since I thought it was going to rain all day, and I expected the museums to have policies against photography, I did not carry my camera with me on this part of our excursion.

Well, I learned a few things. First, the hourly forecast on Weather.com was pretty darn useless. Each hour it claimed anywhere from a 50% to a 70% chance of rain. In reality, each and every hour was dry. I guess, according to the laws of weathermen, their forecast was accurate because a 50% chance of rain is also a 50% chance of dry. It was my fault for assuming 50% to 70% chance of rain for each of eight straight hours means that I am probably getting wet.

Next I learned, at least for the museums I visited, their policy against cameras is pretty non-existent. The National Museum of the American Indian had no policy against photography at all as far as I could tell. The United States Botanic Garden requires special permission to use a tripod, but otherwise no limits. And the National Gallery of Art, the one that I figured would be really restrictive, had no policy against photography for their standing exhibitions, but did disallow photography for their special exhibitions.

So, I left my camera at the hotel for no good reason. It did not rain and the museums did not care if I had a camera. Next time I will know better.

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