History

Washington DC,  Friday, August 22, 2014

White House
Apparently the way to see the White House is to request permission through one's Congressman.  Then you get to go through a security screening before you're even added to the list  for a given time and date to take a walking tour through portions of the White House that has been made available on that particular date.  And when you go to see the White House, you are not allowed to take anything with you - no bags, no food, no cameras.  NO CAMERAS.

You are allowed to bring  your cell phone and your wallet.  So for this portion of our day in D.C., my cell phone became my camera.  We drove to DC in two vehicles.  Linzy's mother Norma rode with us, while Sean's family rode in their car, and we parked in the Reagan building parking, which cost about $20 for the entire day and we had to go through a security check to do so  (when we were there in March, Brent and I parked in another parking garage and it cost over $40 for 3 hrs, would have been more if we had been longer).  Sean uses this location a lot when he brings his family into downtown and he said they always seem to have a parking place open, though we began to wonder if this day was going to be the exception.   No sweat.  We found two places to park our two cars and then proceeded to the White House.

We were a little early.   So we explored for a minute.   And sat and rested.

 
And explored some more, heading over to peak at the White House through the fence.

We weren't even allowed to bring in strollers.  The wheelchair Grandma had rented was, however, perfectly fine (which she really didn't want to have to use, but by the end of the day was really glad she got the royal treatment instead of having to walk the entire distance.)

Linzy's Mom (in the white) and Sean and Linzy's family:  L-R  Sean, Sean Tyler Jr, Linzy, Tabatha, Jacob, Nick, Norma.

Including Edna and Brent.

Norma's turn to photograph.  Not sure why we only ended up with one photo to choose from, but I'll take it.  The kids were done with smiling for the camera anyway.   So was Grandpa. Which is why there was only one.   (The biggest problem was there was a group of tourists who were starting to barge in front of the camera at this point.  It was easier to just let them go.)

Finally it was time to make our way to the line for our White House tour time.  You cannot just go and decide you want to take a tour.  Entrance is by pre-screened and advance work (i.e., allow several months).

 I got in trouble for taking the photo above, so my phone was then pocketed until we came through the other end of the tour. I knew we weren't supposed to take pictures inside the White House.  But apparently not of the security process either.

Which is too bad.  This was the first check station where they compared our photo ID's to their list to make sure we were already pre-screened and in the right time slot.

Then we went through another identical check point where they checked the same things, once again.

Then we went past a bomb sniffing dog.

And a metal detector.

And finally we got to go into the White House.   Edna and Brent got special treatment and saw areas the rest of us did not because of the wheel chair.  I loved going through that beautiful historic mansion.  I loved seeing the old old furniture, the paintings and the many artifacts that are kept in the building.  I was hoping to see the Oval Office but it was closed during our tour.  We did get to see the blue room and the pink (rose) room and the yellow room and the green room and the .... oh, wait, there weren't that many colored rooms and I don't remember their official titles, but we saw a bunch of them and they were all gorgeous.  My favorite room was the library.  Wow.  Like out of a movie.  I'm sure there are 'official' photos online.  I just didn't get to take any. 

So we will skip to the end of the tour.  Going out the back door this is what we saw:

It was a drizzly overcast day and people sported umbrellas as they lined up to take pictures of the back of the White House.  Or maybe it was the front?  All I know was it was a different side than we entered from and I was surprised at the number of tourists there all the time.  Grateful we got to do more on this trip than stand at the gate to take pictures.

Next stop:  The Nation's Capitol Building!
So many of these historic D.C. buildings were erected before Joseph Smith was even born that the historic-ness of this great city was not lost on me.  I was amazed at the architecture and the beauty of the old old buildings found here.  But we were running late to make our appointment to go through the Capitol building so I didn't get a chance to take any photos as we broke a sweat up the hill to it.
 

Cobblestones and archways.  Awesome!

We went to the Rayburn Office Building where we entered through security at a place that did not have elevator access to get up the stairs with the wheelchair.  Instead there was the contraption you see on the wall. Brent and Edna waited for someone to come to their aid and help get it functioning for her ride up the stairs.  I hurried up to Rep. Jim Matheson's office to let them know we had arrived.

 

Once we all arrived, we were escorted in a private tour by a terrific guide, courtesy of Matheson's office, through the tunnel from the office building to the Capitol.   Going through the tunnel, we got to see some of the very best artwork representing the many talented and gifted students throughout the nation.

The first thing we saw when we got inside the Capitol was this huge plaster cast of the Statue of Freedom that is perched on the very top of the dome  (you can see the bronze statue on the photo of the Capitol building near the bottom of this post.)

Sean Jr. had some bonding time with Great-Grandma Loveridge:

We went into the basement of the building.  We saw the very center of it, where a place was built to entomb George Washington's body when he passed away.  He never wanted that, however, and so he's buried, instead, at Mount Vernon. 

I was fascinated with the arches and the architectural lines I saw throughout the Capitol.  The old columns with corn capitals at the top, were absolutely gorgeous.

Photo by Brent

The original Supreme Court room was dimly lit and retained much of the original feel of the room that is now mostly just used for things like swearing in new presidents.  The lamps are electric, and so I'm sure the room is much cleaner now than it was then, but the furnishings are supposed to be exact replicas of the original.

There were other rooms down in the bottom of the Capitol I never would have made my way to see if we had not been on tour.  As an 'off-the-street' tourist, I probably would have only made it to the rotunda, quite frankly.  So this was great!

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Finally made our way into the rotunda.  The dome is undergoing repairs and renovations right now so it was covered with plastic.   But there were still a few things to see looking up, and a lot of things to see looking around.  I was amazed to learn that the images depicting the United States history you see about a third of the way from the bottom are actually paintings, not carvings.  I was sure they were carvings.

Haha - up at the top looks like these founding fathers are peeking out at us below:

The girl in the blue shirt above (pointing) was our guide.  She had a great personality and was super patient with our slow moving group.   Plus she taught us a lot about that great building.

In one room there were statues of great men representing every state of the Union.  Here's Utah!:

When we found out we had to check all our bags, not once but twice (once for each room) to go into the House and Senate galleries, plus wait in long lines, we all agreed we were tired and ready to leave.  And we'd save that part of the tour for another trip out there.

As it was, we had a wonderful visit to the nation's Capitol.   Brent and Sean walked all the way back to the parking garage to gather our cars while the rest of us went back to the Rayburn Building to wait for them in a spot that had a pick up zone, and had lots of benches for getting off our sore feet.

View of the Capitol from the Rayburn Building.

Columns and decorative adornments on the Rayburn Building

Don't laugh.  Don't judge.  We ate at Costco for dinner that night.  It was expedient and it worked.  I'll just leave it at that.