Sat 14 Jan 2006
The boys and I attempted to go to the Navy History Museum at the Naval Shipyards in DC, but I got lost (who knew there was more than one 6th street in DC, and 50 S is actually 50 W – and turns into New York Ave)? No wonder I normally take the Metro in to DC (and I’ve been here > 5 years!). Anyway, we ended up close to the Library of Congress, and the Folger Shakespeare Library, so we stopped in the Folger. The Library itself is closed to the general public, but they do have a long corridor with some exhibits. One of the permanent exhibits is a First Folio of Shakespeare, from 1623. Turns out the Folger holds one-third of the existing copies of the First Folios of Shakespeare’s plays. One of them they keep on permanent display. I didn’t have a mono or tripod with me, but I took a couple of pictures. As a book collector, it was cool to be this close to the first printed edition of some of the greatest works in English. The kids were less impressed, at least until I told them it was almost 400 years old. Later in the day as Dylan was telling Kirsten about the visit, he mentioned “and we saw this really old book, like 100,000 years old”. Close enough.
We didn’t go into the Library of Congress (one Library a day for the kids). That’s for another trip.