Day Five: Skylar's Birthday!
We had a tour of the Capitol Building scheduled at 10 a.m. and I didn't want to risk being late for it, so we left Curtis' house at 5:30 a.m. and arrived in DC an hour early, so we hurried to the White House to take a photo since we wouldn't be able to take any the next day. Then we hurried back to the Capitol Building (they are quite far from each other and we took a metro to get from one to the other, in addition to walking quite a ways) and made it barely with enough time for me to nurse Lizzie (I got very good at nursing her in bathroom stalls -- there was rarely any place else to feed her) before going to Senator Barrasso's office for our scheduled tour of Capitol Hill. 
We were the only 3 people on our tour. Senator Barrasso has 3 interns that take people on tours. Our intern said that they usually only have 2 or 3 tours a week, whereas other states might have 20 tours a day. He gave us name tags so that we could get clearance through security and so that we wouldn't be stopped by any of the Capitol personnel. Their office was in the Dirksen Building. He took us on the underground train under the Russell building (more Senate offices) to the Capitol Building. That was probably Cameron's highlight of the tour - riding on the underground train & subway.
He took us through many rooms & hallways - it is like a maze there, you could get lost very easily, and it's not very wheel-chair accessible, so we kept having to fold the stroller up to go up or down stairs. We kept passing people in the hallways and he'd say, "that's Senator so-and-so from such-and-such state." We saw where the Appropriations Committee meets, we saw where people were lined up to go into the gallery to watch the Senate in session (we didn't want to wait in line for that).
Each state gets to have 2 statues of prominent people to represent their state. Our state is Chief Washakie (neat since he's buried here in Lander and of course Fort Washakie is named after him) and also the woman who was instrumental in making Wyoming the first state where women had the right to vote (I can't remember her name right now). We also saw the statue of the 1st king of Hawaii (Cameron is standing next to it in the photo above), which weighs 7 1/2 tons and had to be placed above a support pillar or else it would have gone through the floor in ten minutes and then through the floor underneath. There was a large room where many of the states' statues were and he said that the statues used to be spread throughout the room, but the floor was starting to sink so they had
to move them all to the outskirts of the room. It was this same room that had several gold squares on the floor with the names of presidents on them and the dates that they
had served in the senate before their presidency. He showed us where John Quincy Adams' name plate was, and told us that people used to think Senator Adams was asleep because he would lay his head on his desk. But he walked across the room and whispered quietly to us (about 30 feet away) and we could hear him as if he were speaking through a microphone. He said it was just in that one area of the room, some mystery with the acoustics that only happened in that one place. So John Quincy Adams was not sleeping, he was listening intently to what the southern Senators were saying on the other side of this large room. It worked the other way, too, because I went to stand next to him on the other side of the room and I could hear Cameron talking back at John Quincy Adams' gold square. That was a fun little tidbit of history that we learned at the Capitol!
Also he said there was a tradition that whenever something bad happened (such as President Lincoln's assassination), a black cat walked through the Capitol Building. He showed us in the floor where there were permanent cat footprints etched into the floor. Isn't that interesting and a bit strange? I'm not one for superstitions, but who knows?
I think he was pretty tired of us because he took us on the subway under the Hart building (more Senate offices) back to his office and our tour was only one hour long (they said to plan on 2 hours). We sure enjoyed our tour, though. Afterwards we walked out of the Capitol Building and over to the Supreme Court building
and past the Library of Congress (which Cameron is just sure is the exact building they used for National Treasure 2 -- I'm not sure, I'd have to watch it again to see).
We took the metro back to our car in Vienna and used my Mapquest directions to get to the Olive Garden in Vienna! We ate lunch there. It was only 4 miles from our metro stop and I hadn't realized it until the night before when I searched online for Olive Gardens! We had a splendid lunch and then we drove to Front Royal, and went to the Walmart there to pick up some items for dinner. We made some chicken nuggets & Lindsay had some fries in the freezer, and they had picked up at cake earlier in the day. We celebrated Skylar's 2nd birthday! It was fun and I don't think Skylar totally knew what was going on, except that she was getting presents and eating cake and wearing a party hat. I think Zoey wished it was her birthday too. The cake was delicious, but unfortunately Lindsay couldn't have any because it was chocolate and that bothers Gwen. We had fun visiting that night and then went to bed to get up for an early day on Saturday!
We were the only 3 people on our tour. Senator Barrasso has 3 interns that take people on tours. Our intern said that they usually only have 2 or 3 tours a week, whereas other states might have 20 tours a day. He gave us name tags so that we could get clearance through security and so that we wouldn't be stopped by any of the Capitol personnel. Their office was in the Dirksen Building. He took us on the underground train under the Russell building (more Senate offices) to the Capitol Building. That was probably Cameron's highlight of the tour - riding on the underground train & subway.He took us through many rooms & hallways - it is like a maze there, you could get lost very easily, and it's not very wheel-chair accessible, so we kept having to fold the stroller up to go up or down stairs. We kept passing people in the hallways and he'd say, "that's Senator so-and-so from such-and-such state." We saw where the Appropriations Committee meets, we saw where people were lined up to go into the gallery to watch the Senate in session (we didn't want to wait in line for that).
Each state gets to have 2 statues of prominent people to represent their state. Our state is Chief Washakie (neat since he's buried here in Lander and of course Fort Washakie is named after him) and also the woman who was instrumental in making Wyoming the first state where women had the right to vote (I can't remember her name right now). We also saw the statue of the 1st king of Hawaii (Cameron is standing next to it in the photo above), which weighs 7 1/2 tons and had to be placed above a support pillar or else it would have gone through the floor in ten minutes and then through the floor underneath. There was a large room where many of the states' statues were and he said that the statues used to be spread throughout the room, but the floor was starting to sink so they had
to move them all to the outskirts of the room. It was this same room that had several gold squares on the floor with the names of presidents on them and the dates that they
had served in the senate before their presidency. He showed us where John Quincy Adams' name plate was, and told us that people used to think Senator Adams was asleep because he would lay his head on his desk. But he walked across the room and whispered quietly to us (about 30 feet away) and we could hear him as if he were speaking through a microphone. He said it was just in that one area of the room, some mystery with the acoustics that only happened in that one place. So John Quincy Adams was not sleeping, he was listening intently to what the southern Senators were saying on the other side of this large room. It worked the other way, too, because I went to stand next to him on the other side of the room and I could hear Cameron talking back at John Quincy Adams' gold square. That was a fun little tidbit of history that we learned at the Capitol!Also he said there was a tradition that whenever something bad happened (such as President Lincoln's assassination), a black cat walked through the Capitol Building. He showed us in the floor where there were permanent cat footprints etched into the floor. Isn't that interesting and a bit strange? I'm not one for superstitions, but who knows?
I think he was pretty tired of us because he took us on the subway under the Hart building (more Senate offices) back to his office and our tour was only one hour long (they said to plan on 2 hours). We sure enjoyed our tour, though. Afterwards we walked out of the Capitol Building and over to the Supreme Court building
and past the Library of Congress (which Cameron is just sure is the exact building they used for National Treasure 2 -- I'm not sure, I'd have to watch it again to see).We took the metro back to our car in Vienna and used my Mapquest directions to get to the Olive Garden in Vienna! We ate lunch there. It was only 4 miles from our metro stop and I hadn't realized it until the night before when I searched online for Olive Gardens! We had a splendid lunch and then we drove to Front Royal, and went to the Walmart there to pick up some items for dinner. We made some chicken nuggets & Lindsay had some fries in the freezer, and they had picked up at cake earlier in the day. We celebrated Skylar's 2nd birthday! It was fun and I don't think Skylar totally knew what was going on, except that she was getting presents and eating cake and wearing a party hat. I think Zoey wished it was her birthday too. The cake was delicious, but unfortunately Lindsay couldn't have any because it was chocolate and that bothers Gwen. We had fun visiting that night and then went to bed to get up for an early day on Saturday!
1 comment:
I love learning about history. Those tours sound so fascinating. Happy belated birthday to little Skylar!
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