The Capital & Library of Congress

*I've just Added another slideshow to add our pictures from today. Check out!

What a wonderful day we had yesterday! We took the early bus and subway yesterday into DC to get an early start since there's just not enough time in a day to see everything we plan to see. We started our day off at the Capitol. We arrived just in time to walk right up and grab a couple tickets for the next tour, which was just starting. After a 15 minute movie, a tour guide took us through the main and second floor of the Capitol building. Of course, the Congress isn't in session right now, but we did pass Speaker Nancy Pelosi's offices. The architecture is just amazing. There are full length statues of all Presidents as well as various key individuals from all states as well.

At the end of our Capitol tour, the tour guide explained that you can reach the Library of Congress by following the underground tunnels from the Capital. Though the Library of Congress wasn't even on our list of things to see, based on information from the tour guide, we decided to take a short detour over to the Library of Congress. WOW! It was awesome! I just thought there would be various books in this building...not! First of all, the architecture of this building was just amazing. We came in just in time for a tour of the building and joined in for the one hour tour.

We were shocked to discover all the things the Library of Congress had. There were more key documents and items from an historical perspective in this building than I ever remember seeing in any building any where. Everything from draft copies of the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights from Thomas Jefferson, to actual ship logs, diaries from the 15th and 16th centuries. There were so many historical documents from Early America as well as things from way back in the 5th and 6th centuries. In addition, Thomas Jefferson's entire library of more than 5,000 books were on display. BUT, in addition to all these historical items, there were also other really cool things, like a complete section dedicated to Bob Hope and included everything from his first contract with Vaudeville, to his Presidential medal of Honor from President Johnson. Bob Hope's dancing shoes, lot's and lot's of scripts from his shows, his Oscar from the 60's and so so so much more.

To top off this day, we were headed to the National Archives for a short visit to plan out our follow up trip there to check out what we wanted to see. But, we passed the National Museum of Art on the way. Now, for anyone that knows Mark and I, we've never been into the Arts, but we decided to stop in and check it out briefly. I almost decided to turnaround and leave when I found out we had to check our backpack...seemed like to much trouble. But, we decided to take a quick peek and oh my gosh! There's were numerous rooms with paintings that were just gorgeous. We actually saw numerous paintings from (I'll probably butcher these names, but here goes): Renoir; Whistler; Van Goh; Rembrandt, etc. etc. The majority of the pictures were in the 15th - 17th centuries! And many of them were Huge...like the size of a king-size bed. There were statues and other things, but we didn't really enjoy those too much. To actually see these paintings, that weren't even enclosed in glass cases, where we could get right up on them and view them...was, well--Awesome. Can't think of a bigger word than that. I so enjoyed the visit to the National Museum of Art. We didn't take our camera into the Art Museum because we thought pictures couldn't be taken, but after entering saw that was not the case. So, we may go back so I can get some pictures.

Whew! Sorry for the length of the explanation, but we just saw and enjoyed sooooooooo much. Our day of 1) The Capital, 2) Library of Congress and 3) National Museum of Art, made the day my absolute favorite while not only in DC, but any day I've experienced while on this journey. We're planning on going back tomorrow to spend the day at the National Archives. We leave DC Monday morning, but we're not really sure where we're headed quite yet. We're thinking about either Gettsyburg, Pennsylvania to see civil war stuff or Lancaster, Pennsylvania and Amish country. Well that about wraps up another wonderfully blessed day of this journey...stay tuned~