watching a loooooong line of tourists with headsets heading en masse up an escalator from the visitor's center. Instead, you get to walk slowly through the Capital in a group of 10 or so people from your home state with an intern -- a college student who is usually majoring in some form of political science or national policy and who is just excited about being there as you are about touring.Devon and Jara were our interns for the day. Devon was a young man from Olathe, a junior in political science at Yale. Jara was from Nebraska but had served on the horse and livestock judging teams the previous few years at Kansas State University. Jara ended up knowing Meg Drake -- a local from Winfield who is also on the horse judging team. Small world.
Because the senate office buildings were very close to our apartment, we walked through the Hart Building, waved "hello" to Senator Roberts office on the first floor and then went downstairs to the tunnel that connects the Hart Building to the Russell Building - which is where we found the
offices of Jerry Moran. We were early, so we walked on in and hung out in the office chatting with Devon and Joshua (the office assistant) while waiting on the other family who were touring that day.On the way to the office, we noticed increased levels of secret service posted throughout the Capital complex area. In the Senator's office, we discovered why. On the TV, the MSN reporters were stationed outside the Pentagon where apparently a suspicious car had been found with a bomb inside. The streets around the pentagon were gridlocked and the office staff were paying close attention to the news coverage. I think this is the first time the boys understood what mom and dad meant by saying that this trip would make watching news
channels on tv a little more interesting.The capital tour was great and Devon did a super job of pointing out things like bullet holes throughout the capital for the boys. He also talked about the statues. Each state in the union gets to have two statues in the National Statuary Collection located inside the building. One of our statues is Dwight Eisenhower who is
prominently displayed next to Ronald Reagan in the Capital rotunda. Cool. The second statue is John James Ingalls. "Who??" you may ask. And everyone from Kansas would say, "Exactly." Apparently, John was a supporter of Kansas and instrumental to Kansas becoming a state....the only problem is, nobody knows who he is. So, in August of 2010, the Kansas legislature voted to replace John with the very well known Amelia Earhart. She will become the tenth woman honored by having a statue in the collection. People are discussing the design for it as we speak.The other cool part of the tour was the old House chamber where there is a plaque noting the location of John Quincy Adams' desk. Approximately 40 feet away on the other side of the room
is another plaque where the leader of the Democratic party would hold meetings to discuss policy and opinions with his colleagues during debates. Unbeknownst to this group and due to the strange accoustics in the room, everything that is said in this area can be clearly heard in the spot where Republican John Adams sat. John would pretend to sleep while listening to everything his opposition was saying. Devon gave us a demonstration. It was awesome.The Senate gallery was closed for the day, so we spent extra time in the House gallery checking out the room and hearing details about the various elements from Devon. From there, we took the tram back to the senate building and popped back down to the basement to eat dinner in the senate cafeteria. It was a great meal and much less expensive than the Smithsonian cafeteria from the day before. A good place to make a stop if you are nearby.
After that, we walked across the street to Union Station and hopped the Metro for the Ford's Theater. We got out at the Metro Center station and walked past the FBI building to the theater. The boys were thrilled with the idea of walking by this building and we actually saw some real life "men in black" coming out of it as we passed. Things were hopping in the Metro and around the building due to the bomb scare earlier in the day. We had some fun pondering where the guy was that they had just caught.
We got our tickets for the Ford Theater ranger presentation and spent a few moments wandering through the exhibit prior to the ranger talk. The exhibit is great (has the gun that shot Lincoln displayed, an area displaying the Confederate conspirators as well as pictures of the Lincoln family and some of Mrs. Lincoln's china). If you have younger
folks with you, spend the extra few dollars it takes to get the audio tour. Sam remarked that one of the sections of the audio tour was pretty graphic, so of course we all dialed in the number and listened. It was a description of how the bullet that killed Lincoln traveled through his body and where it eventually lodged. If you have boys along, this is the stuff of legend.We then went into the theater where the ranger did a terrific job of describing the events of the evening and the political climate that led to Lincoln's shooting. I never tire of hearing this presentation. It's amazing to relive this portion of history. Hearing it within the context of the actual building where it took place makes the history come alive. Great experience.
It was here that Isaac bought the souvenier that would bring joy to nearly everyone that we passed for the remainder of the trip. In the gift shop, he bought and then proceeded to wear a genuine Abraham Lincoln hat. Although Isaac and his freckles looked great, we all agreed that the person in our family that looked most like Lincoln with it on, was Ross.
From there, we returned to the American History museum to eat dinner in the cafeteria, finish looking through the Price of Freedom museum that we got kicked out of the day before, and then headed
to the World War II memorial for an evening ranger led tour of the WWII, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Korean and Vietnam war memorials.If you are in DC, and you have the time and inclination, touring these memorials as part of a ranger led tour is interesting. We were led by two rangers, one a student of 20th century war history and the second an expert on the construction of the memorials themselves. These two spent a little over two hours walking us through the wars and timeframe that these memorials represented and how each one was connected.
The boys remained interested throughout the entire tour, so I would say that the rangers did
their job. The Korean Memorial remains my favorite - to get the full effect this one must be seen at night when the shadows of the soldiers cast their reflection in the wall behind them -- but each one is impressive in its own right. We ended the evening beside the Vietnam memorial and then headed across the street to check out the evening view from the Lincoln Memorial. The boys were excited about visiting this one and enjoyed our quick jaunt through Abe's house.After that, it was back to the Smithsonian Metro station and the apartment. Another adventure filled, good day in DC.
