Day 15 - Capitol Crusin'

North America » United States » District of Columbia
June 19th 2008

Published: June 23rd 2008

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Senate

Outside Carl Levin's office

We saw an Alaska plate and we’re up to 46 total plates.

Our tour of the Capitol building this morning was with Jennifer, an intern from Grosse Pointe, who is a senior at Duke in Political Science. She was quite new as an intern and couldn’t tell us any secrets or dirt on anyone!
We got to sit in the gallery and listen to the senator from Florida talk about the “brouhaha” caused by talk of offshore drilling in his state. We didn’t stay long, but did get to see where our own Michigan Senators sit when they are there. Only a few senators were actually there today.

We bought a 2 day pass to ride an open top bus and learned how to duck quickly. The bus was open-topped and was 14 feet above street level. Many of the more residential areas had beautiful trees that hung down over the street. Jason, being the tall one, had a fair number of branches hit him as he tried to photograph historical buildings.

We rode around part of DC and stopped off at the Hard Rock Café for an afternoon dessert. Just across the street was the house where

Secret Train

The secret train we took to the Capitol.

Lincoln died after being shot at Fords Theater. There was quite a line to get in the house, but we patiently waited to see the bed upon which he passed.

After that, we headed for one of those “3 for $10” t-shirt shops. You know, the shirts that last through about 3 washings then fall apart. Most of them state “Washington D.C.” or “I Love D.C.” But you have buy these shirts while you’re here at least once!

Back on the bus, we rode to the Lincoln Memorial where Sam met a new buddy. His name was Buddy and he was a very young retriever puppy. In the meantime, Carrie was eager to find the restrooms, but found port-a-Johns instead. A water main had broken earlier in the day and Carrie had to brave it in the scary port-a-Johns! They were very scary! Jason spent his time trying to take pictures of some baby ducks. Mama Duck was quite protective, however.

We went back to the camp and made Sloppy Joes for dinner and did laundry. Not an exciting evening, as we were all very tired!

We saw an Alaska plate and we’re up to 46