Vacation - Day 7

We spent Day 6 taking more tours. We decided that we would head out of town at the end of the day and we got our congressman to hold our things while we did the tours. It was a bit stressful finding our way through the city but we made it through fine. We were so used to taking the Metro, we were starting to feel like regulars instead of tourists, that is until we had to actually drive to the White House.

The White House tour came first. What an amazing place. After getting through security twice, we headed down the halls of this magnificent home. The secret service were so nice, I thought they would be intimidating but they weren't. They seemed interested in talking about Harleys, Milwaukee, and our travels. I was interested in moving on through the house, but I tried to contain my excitement and be as polite as one of the First Ladies of this fine home. The furniture is from many presidents and it has a history all of its own. I loved seeing every room and I still can't believe I was in the White House.

We walked across the street to the Washington Hotel for a sophisticated, healthy lunch. We basked in the sunlight on the patio while the servers brought us our food. It was exquisite. The view of the White House landscape across the street felt surreal. It was a perfect day.

As we headed out towards the Capitol building for our final tour, I took some shots of the views from the bike. The Capitol was straight ahead which made the view amazing. It was the final good-bye to the bustling city. So much energy is such an important place.

The Capitol tour was good. It wasn't my favorite, the Library of Congress was. The intern, Chris was a wonderfully polite young man. He was personable but he needed to work on his presentation skills. He knew the Capitol building very well, but he needed to get his spiel in better order. There were some good points about an informal tour, you could stop and ask anything at anytime.

Some of the really cool points of the Capitol that I didn't know was that the very center of the Capitol was built on the very center of Washington, DC. It is marked by a star in the center of the magnificent floor. George Washington was supposed to be buried there, but he chose his home of Mt. Vernon as his final resting place. There were many statues occupying the building, each form a character from history chosen to represent their state of residence. There were some statues representing specific groups through history and my favorite was the women's statue. It had three women from the suffragette movement along with a large uncarved chunk of stone towards the back. This unfinished part was reserved for the first woman president. I will have to go back and see it finished. Hopefully it will happen during my lifetime.

We ended our tour back at our congressman, Paul Ryan's office and thanked Chris for his time. We asked for directions and headed on our way. Getting out of town was a little stressful, the traffic moves at a very fast pace but we made it. Time to head home.