Ockey Family Adventures: Washington DC Day 4

We put in a lot of walking this day!

We walked a lot this day! The boys did pretty well, but Mom and Dad had achy, tired legs by the time we got back to the car. The day started with us parking at the Reagan Building just east of the White House. From there we walked across the Mall to the Smithsonian Castle. This was a short stop to grab a map and take a few photos. Then we walked up around the Capitol to the Supreme Court. We had a few minutes to spend in the Supreme Court House before our Capitol Tour. As we walked around the Capitol, sirens sounded and guards came to every walkway keeping people back from the building. We were afraid our tour might be cancelled, but there was nothing to do but explore the Court, so we did. There were a few fun things to see including pictures of justices past and present.

We walked around the Capitol to get to the Supreme Court building.

Dad loves the Supreme Court so he was super excited.

This is Dad's favorite Supreme Court Justice: John Paul Stevens (even though he's retired now).

The old buildings are beautiful.

When we crossed the street to the Capitol, the line was long, but people were being allowed inside. Apparently even the Senators need to practice fire drills. Once inside, we found out we were in the wrong place anyway. We needed to meet our tour guide in the Representatives' office, which happened to be in the building across the street. One amazing thing we've learned about Washington, DC is that everyone is so nice. A Capitol worker walked us through an underground tunnel to the Cannon building and helped us find the right place. He gave about half the tour himself as he took fifteen minutes to get us where we were supposed to be.

The Capitol Building is beautiful. Mom was in awe!

Mom was excited to have the boys stand on the steps of such a historic place.

This man was so nice to us. He took us through the connecting tunnel of the offices and the Capitol building.

The tour of the Capitol was about an hour long, and we were led by a U-of-U student from Nepal. She was good to the boys, and tried to make the tour interesting to them by asking questions about them. Some of the tour highlights were the dome, the cast for the statue on top of the building, and the old Supreme Court chamber. The boys liked the whisper chamber where the acoustics help you hear from the other side of the room, and the cat's paw prints, which come from a stray cat that walked through wet cement in the floor of the Capitol.

There are two statues from each state in the Capitol. This is Philo T. Farnsworth who invented the TV.

This is the original Supreme Court office, which was in the Capitol for a long time.

The top of the dome is beautiful!

If you stand right here and someone is at another spot on the opposite side of the room. You can here what they say.
It's cool. And John Quincy Adams is awesome, too!

Here is the other Utah statue. This one is Brigham Young.

Ronald Reagan has pieces of the Berlin Wall in his statue .

This was our tour guide. She was very sweet.

After we left our guide, we went up to the House and Senate chambers. A nice guard explained to Seth that the President would give his speech from the podium in the House chamber and Seth asked, "Wow! Can we watch it?" Unfortunately, the Senate, House, and Supreme Court were all not in session this week. It was probably easier for the kids to see empty chambers anyway. No pictures wer allowed in the chambers.

Before leaving the Capitol we had lunch in the cafeteria and then bee-lined it to the National Archives. We didn't spend long, but we enjoyed seeing the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Magna Carta. The boys laughed at the home movies of some of our most recent Presidents as children. Mostly, they enjoyed making their own Seal of the United States by choosing an animal, motto, crest, and other individual touches.

The National Archives building was awesome.
The boys talk about this spot a lot because they understand the significance of the documents.
No pictures were allowed in this building either.

Our next stop was the National Gallery of Art. We wandered through some of the rooms in the west building as we headed to see some Van Gogh paintings. There were Rembrandt, Matisse, Renoir, Cassatt, Monet, Gaugin, and all the other great artists. We even found seven of the eight Van Goghs on display including: Self Portait, Roses, Farmhouse in Provence, Girl in White, Green Wheat Fields, La Mousme, and Still Life with Oranges and Lemons, which was signed "Vincent, Arles, 89." This was easily Dad's favorite part of the day, and the boys and Mom liked it, too.

There was a lot to see in the National Gallery. You could spend a whole day just roaming.
But we got excited when we saw this sign.

Mark studied a lot of paintings for Knowledge Bowl so he was happy to recognize so many.

Mom loves Monet!

We all love Van Gogh.

Everyone picked their favorite painting to take a picture by.

It was neat to see them in person.

Dad was in heaven with all the Van Gogh paintings. He loves the green of this one.

After the art, we crossed the Mall again for the Air and Space Museum. This one had more exhibits and was much more interactive, but we all liked the other museum of airplanes more. The boys liked opportunities to fly simulators, test their reflexes, and try to get a ship into orbit. There were also rockets and ships to walk through. Funniest of all, Dax was really disappointed with the Starship Enterprise as it is only about 3 feet tall. "How did they even get in there, Dad?" he asked. And he didn't like Dad's answer, "They had to beam aboard." We also watched a show on the domed room of the planetarium. It was a really interesting explanation of dark matter, but it was probably over the head of all five of us. Seth even took a little nap.

The boys were not impressed with the Enterprise.

There was a room filled with hands-on activities, and that is where we spent most of our time.

There were some neat aircraft to see like the Spirit of St. Louis.

Seth slept through the movie, and Mom and Dad might have, too!

By then, we'd been on our feet for almost nine hours, and it was after five o'clock. We still had one more stop to make, though. We walked down past the Washington Memorial where Seth talked Dad into making a giant W with their arms (for Washington) and stopped at the WWII Memorial. It was very interesting, and we liked it as much as the other memorials, but mostly we wanted to turn in the National Mall Junior Ranger booklets. After a walk back to the car, we decided that none of us were really hungry, so we made the drive back to Falls Church. Then, we finally made an early night of it and went to bed around 8:30.