Last week Cole and I had a fun filled week exploring Washington D.C. We were on our feet all day and did more walking than I think was good for us. My feet are still hurting but it was more than worth it! By using my free airline tickets and paying my special travel agent rate for our hotel, it was an incredible trip at a price too good to pass up.
We started off our week by visiting Capitol Hill. Our friend currently works for the Senate Judiciary Committee in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. He was nice enough to show us around the Senate Office Buildings and the Supreme Court.
Our friend also hooked us up with a Capitol tour in the afternoon. We used the underground Capitol Subway system to reach the Capitol Visitor Center. Here we are hopping on the subway.
When we arrived at the Capitol Visitor Center we watched the short film “Out of Many, One” in the Orientation Theater, then we were on our way!
An article from The Architect of the Capitol explains, “The National Statuary Hall Collection in the Capitol is comprised of statues donated by individual states to honor persons notable in their history. All fifty states have contributed two statues each.” Utah’s donations include a statue of none other than Beaver County’s own Philo T. Farnsworth, the Father of the Television.
The Capitol is such a beautiful building. Here are some of my favorite parts:
Notice the old brass spittoon on the floor?
Abraham Lincoln’s desk location marker:
The Capitol’s central rotunda:
Here I am in the “crypt” located underneath the Capitol rotunda. This is where George Washington’s tomb was going to be laid, but it now serves as a museum and part of the Capitol tour. The white star I am standing on marks the center point of Washington D.C. and where the four quadrants of the city begin.
We walked everywhere! We loved the green leafy trees along Pennsylvania Ave. Luckily we had perfect weather for strolling around the city.
We walked to the White House and along the National Mall. Did you know the National Mall is part of the National Park Service?
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
We loved the World War II Memorial. Ever wonder how the states are arranged? The National Park Services explains, “Much like a formal gathering of military or governmental leaders, wherein the guest or place of honor is at center. In this case, the place of honor is held by the field of gold stars that symbolizes the number of American dead and missing from World War II. To the right of the place of honor would be the next important element in rank, superiority, or designation, in this case, the State of Delaware, the first to ratify the U.S. Constitution. To the left of the center would be the second, in this case the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Then the order goes back and forth, or right and left, around the circle, much like a military procession, or march of States as each entered the Union. The States are followed by U.S. Territories, again in the order by which they became such, alternating right to left.”
