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Tour of the Capital


Parsnip Totin Jack

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My cousin Matt, and his wife Mona, brought two granddaughters to DC for a visit over their spring break. They arrived Friday and visited the cherry blossoms, the outdoor monuments, Lincoln, Jefferson, FDR, MLK, the war memorials, Vietnam, Korea and WWII. Sunday and Monday, the weather was cold and cloudy so they hit the museums. Natural History, American History, Smithsonian, and the National Gallery of Art. 

Yesterday they had a tour with a staffer from the office of Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (RI). We get to the Hart Senate Office building at 9:20 for the 9:30 tour. The staffer gives us passes we have to wear to get around some security checkpoints and go down to the first floor and walk under the Dirksen and Russell office buildings to the subway that takes us to the Capitol. We viewed the original Supreme Court, Senate chamber, the rotunda and other nooks and crannies of the old building. The old stories from history are cool to hear. We had to go thru additional security screening to get to the House chamber used today. No electronics, and apparently this includes car key fobs. We finally get thru screening and there is no one in the chamber. Well that was a bust. After lunch at SweetGreen, we walked to the US Botanical Garden and toured that. Very cool place.

 

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Compass marks the center of DC (figurative not literal geographic center) which divides the city into the four quadrants.

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The Rotunda

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Old Senate chamber. This is where Sen. Preston Brooks (SC) beat Sen. Charles Sumner (MA) with a cane for insulting a relative over slave ownership. Sen. Sumner almost died from his injuries but recovered.

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Spittoon in the old Senate chamber

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Lincoln's desk location is marked in the original House of Representatives when he was a Congressman from Illinois.

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When my kids were HS/JR High we had a DC trip arranged to visit family.  We contacted our local Congressman about 6 weeks prior and he arranged a similar Capital tour for us.  It was just us and another family escorted by two staffers. 

It was an awesome tour as we bypassed the long lines and were granted access to areas the general tour doesnt allow. Very cool experience and I highly recommend it.

 

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2 hours ago, ChrisL said:

When my kids were HS/JR High we had a DC trip arranged to visit family.  We contacted our local Congressman about 6 weeks prior and he arranged a similar Capital tour for us.  It was just us and another family escorted by two staffers. 

It was an awesome tour as we bypassed the long lines and were granted access to areas the general tour doesnt allow. Very cool experience and I highly recommend it.

 

That's what my cousin did. He contacted Senator Whitehouse's office in advance. A staff member met us in the Hart Senate office building and gave the six of us a private tour with passes to get around most of the lines. We also got to ride on the subway from the Senate office building to the Capital building. 

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