On to Day Four, and our last day in Washington...


Yesterday, we stopped here, but the line was really long and we were standing in the hot afternoon sun for so long that we decided to skip it and try it today.  To my surprise, we actually followed a plan that we'd previously laid out and we arrived at 9:30am!  And that was AFTER finding a parking place!!  (Ohhh, don't get me started on the parking situation around here...!!!!) 

Here is the actual theater.  Most of my 5 readers will know that the box office in the center of this photo is where Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln were when Mr. Lincoln was shot.  This theater still has plays on a regular basis and is very much a working theater.  Pretty cool, huh?


What's he reading, Reese?  Maybe "The Hunger Games"??

This is the pillow that he laid his head on as he lay dying.  So sad...

And the gun that killed him by the hand of John Wilkes Booth.  Grrrr...

After that sobering exhibit, we moved on to something lighter: the International Spy Museum!!  We didn't want to pay the ridiculous $20 fee they wanted, so we just went on to the store and actually had a really fun time there! 

I could make one of many comments here, but I'll just let you formulate your own.  ;op


Ah, one of my very favorite photos of the whole trip.  :o)  I told him someday when he's sitting in his Congressman's office, he'll have this photo framed on his desk as a "Remember When", he was still dreaming...


Just another shot of the Capital Building.  It's so magnificent it's hard NOT to take pictures of it!

And another...

In case you were wondering where we were walking (walking?  Did I say "walking" again?!?) we were headed back to the Cannon Building (one of the three office buildings where House members keep their offices) to visit our new friends.  This was actually one of the highlights of the whole trip for Reese:

This is Representative Sandy Adams, our district's Representative.  It was her intern that showed us around the Capital building the other day and who were all so nice to us in her office.  We finally tracked down a time when we could meet her and thank her for the tour and she was so very nice to us.  She knew just where Mims was of course (bless her heart) because of course, Brevard county is one of the four counties who she serves.  Yay.  She's a good one, I do believe.  One of her staff even brings his dog to work and he hangs around the office all day, which I thought was neat.  She seemed genuinely interested in us and asked all about what we'd done during our visit and we told her but then we also told her about the concerns we'd had about the monument to the 56 Signers of the Constitution and she was upset to hear it.  I don't know if she can do anything about it or not, but at least we said something.



Then, we scooted back over to Ron Paul's office to meet HIM.  Now, say what you might about Dr. Paul (I agree with about 75% of what he says, wholeheartedly, but the other 25% of what he says... well, not so much.), but he was a VERY nice man (if he wasn't a distinguished congressman, I'd say he was cute old guy!) and really seemed pleased to have us stop by.  He and Reese are seen above discussing politics (small government and getting out of wars and other countries' business), and that was fun to listen to.  :o) 

Here he is, signing the book he wrote.  No, Reese is not going to sneeze...  He also gave us each a copy (in booklet form) of the Constitution that he signed.

The three of us in front of the Texas flag.  (Again with the extra 25 pounds the camera adds to women...!)  Not sure what we were laughing about, but we were pretty happy at this point...


Just walking past again so I got a picture.  On Monday(?) Reese and I ate lunch under this building with the employees.  It's a perk for having influential friends...  (Like interns who show you how to access the tunnels!)


After seeing our friends Sandy and Ron, we headed across the way to the Senate office buildings and made our way to Marco Rubio's office (I've been a fan of his for some time).  We didn't expect he'd be there (he was in a "meeting") but we thought we could always try!!  It was a MUCH MORE FORMAL building than the Cannon Building (obviously - look at it!!) and we were the ONLY people in the entire place with street clothes on (unlike the Cannon).  Reese was in his glory.  He SOOOOO wants to work in a place like this!!  He was practically drooling the entire time we walked about.  We walked through a cafeteria area and there were Senators all over the place (we knew that Congressmen wear a certain lapel pin so we always looked for it) eating lunch.  WOW.  Pretty neat. 


One more shot of the Capital building as we walked (did I say "walk" AGAIN?!?) to our car.  We were crossing the street and I was able to take this as I walked, and I didn't even get hit by a car.  I'm so talented.

Tomorrow we leave Washington and head to Jamestown/Yorktown/Williamsburg and see what we'll see there and then head home.  It's been an exhausting (did I say "walk"???) but very good vacation that meant a lot to the both of us.  :o)  I will try and blog again tomorrow but the Washington stuff is overwith now.