Well, I think that we’re going on six inches of snow, with no sign of its letting up! Local schools were cancelled today, which means that basketball practice is cancelled tonight. (No, our school wasn’t cancelled. It’s one of the downsides of homeschooling!) We got out to tae kwon do this morning, and, fortunately, the kids can walk next door for their piano lessons. But I must say that I am glad to be safely tucked away inside my house, fire going, everything I need right here! And I’m glad that I don’t live in Washington DC or anywhere else on the east coast right now.
Here are a couple pictures of our winter wonderland…taken from warmly inside our house!
I think that, today and next time, I’ll finish up our long-ago trip to Washington DC! It’s ridiculous how long it has taken me to blog about this. I’m starting to forget what we did, which sort of defeats the purpose of writing about it! (For those of you who don’t know, I use my blog to scrapbook…lousy blog memories equals lousy scrapbook journaling. Grrr.)
Anyway, on Wednesday morning, after checking out of the hotel and checking our luggage in to the hotel’s storage for later pickup, we started our last day in the city by getting breakfast from a nearby bakery called Au Bon Pain. The kids had been asking to do this since they saw it on our first day. I’m not sure if the French name or the prospect of giant cinnamon rolls and chocolate croissants was the bigger draw, but we finally stopped. And the food was good!
Then, we jumped the Metro over toward the sights. The only thing we actually had scheduled for this day was an 11:00 tour of the White House. But we had missed out seeing the Supreme Court, the Library of Congress, the Vietnam Wall, and going up the Washington Monument due to the blizzard, so we were going to try to squeeze at least some of those in.
As we were debating whether or not to try to do the Washington Monument before the White House, I remembered that there was a little known sight called the Old Post Office Pavilion, which offered a tower and fantastic views of the city. So, we decided to do that instead of the Washington Monument.
This turned out to be one of our better ideas. There was absolutely no line; in fact, there was no one else even there. Most of the shops and restaurants in the building weren’t open yet, and we had the elevator and the guide’s spiel all to ourselves! Here is a photo of the beautiful interior of this place from the elevator.
On the way up, we got to check out the bells that were a gift from England in 1976, in celebration of our country’s bicentennial. I found this a bit ironic, but hey! We also saw signs about an interesting activity: learning how to ring these bells. Evidently, it’s lots of fun and requires little athletic ability. Good to know.
While it was definitely breezy at the top (read: freezing cold!), the day was clear, and we could see for miles in every direction. The White House is tucked behind the columned building in the last photo.
On our way back down, we finally saw some other people on their way up. There’s nothing like having the whole place to ourselves! On our way out, the kids posed for a photo with their “special” snowballs in front of a statue of Ben Franklin, whom we had been studying in school.
At this point, we needed to dump our cameras, backpacks, and my purse in preparation for our White House tour, as the only items we were allowed to carry in there were phones, wallets, and car keys. The Museum of American History was a few blocks from the White House and offered locker rentals, so we hoofed it over there. This was a bargain. The museum is, of course, free, and locker rental cost is a refundable quarter! We pulled out our ID’s and our phones and walked over to line up with the hoard at the White House gate.
White House tours are notoriously difficult to book, as only your congressman or senator can do it for you, and I’d like to offer a big kudos to our congressman, Aaron Schock, and, more particularly, his office staff who really worked hard to get us this tour. Everything that I read recommended requesting it six months in advance! As we didn’t have any firm plans until about six weeks in advance, I asked for a tour anyway, figuring that the week before Christmas might be a slow time.
Uh, not so much. Senator Dick Durbin’s office told us right away that we were out of luck. In addition, as we were trying to book this tour right after those crazy people crashed that White House party, my brother told me that getting one would be particularly difficult, since the Secret Service was cutting down on the number of people allowed in direct response to that. Great!
The week before we left, I had resigned myself to not seeing the White House. But then, two days before we left, Congressman Schock’s office called me to double check our availability. The staffer told me, “Well, I can’t get you in on your requested dates, but, if you are available on Wednesday, I can book you then.” It just so happened that our flight did not leave until late Wednesday afternoon, and she had an 11:00 opening! We were in!
As you might guess, security was tight. Our names were on a list, we had to show our ID’s several times, and we had to go through a metal detector. (“This isn’t the airport,” a secret service agent snarkily told people. “Don’t take off your shoes!”) There were no exceptions on bags; if you had one, you didn’t get past the perimeter gate.
But, after all that, we got to walk through the beautifully-decorated, most famous residence in the world! Lining the hall into the well-known rooms were candid photos of President Obama and his family and photos of presidents through the years lighting the National Christmas Tree and standing in front of the yearly Gingerbread House. (The Obamas’ gingerbread house featured a mini Bo the Portuguese Water Dog!) And nearly every room had a ginormous Christmas tree somewhere in it. It was lovely!
Once inside, there was a large cardboard Christmas tree with thousands of cubbyholes all over it. Visitors were invited to put their fondest wish for Christmas or the New Year on it and stuff it inside. This was very cool! We all wrote something down and found four spaces next to each other before heading into the rest of the tour.
At one point, Charlotte asked me if the Obamas ever came into these rooms that we were touring. I told her that she should ask one of the plethora of Secret Service agents stationed everywhere. So she did! “Yep, they can come down here,” he told her. “But they don’t very often! They mostly stay in the private quarters.” Charlotte was well pleased with her inquiry and the agent’s answer. I think she found him much less intimidating because her own uncle was now a government agent!
Even though we couldn’t take any pictures inside, we had a great visit. I would highly recommend trying to do this, if you ever get the opportunity. And, while we couldn’t take any photos within spitting distance of the White House, we managed to get a few outside on Jeff’s phone as we were leaving!
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Next time…our afternoon and trip home. Unless something more interesting happens!
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