For all my hours and days of tromping around the hill I’ve never visited the Capitol building.  Yesterday was the day.  Senator Stabenow’s (D-MI) transportation expert gave us passes to visit the Senate and the House galleries.  And we lucked out; when we visited the House Sander Levin (D-MI) was debating  Dave Camp (R-MI) on the Full Faith and Credit Act.  Each Representative gave their opening statements, then called in other House Members including Representative Rangle (D-NY) and  Representative Lewis (D-GA), to support their sides of the issue.  Sometimes it got quite heated.  The only thing they agreed on was that the United States would not default on our bills.  The argument seemed to be who got paid first, the Chinese bond holders or the Social Security and disabled veterans.   After about an hour of this I was so confused I’m not sure even reading the bill would help me sort it out.

Then we moved over to the Senate gallery, just as a long discussion about Syria was started.  Senator McCain (R-AZ), Senator Levin (D-MI), Senator Menendez (R-NJ), and Senator Graham(R-SC) all asked the President to put additional military pressure on Syria in an effort to stop their use of chemical weapons and begin the end of that government’s reign.  That was interesting, if not a little frightening.  Then Senator Boxer (D-CA) who is Chairwoman  of the Senate Committee of Environment and Public Works, began speaking about a water bill, complete with charts.  That was interesting too.

After a couple of hours of watching people talk we needed to get up and move around, so we went on a tour of the Capitol, moving fro the visitor center up to the Rotunda, and into what was the first House of Representatives meeting room, then down through the crypt and back to the visitor center.  I’m glad we did that, as it’s a truly magnificent building and everyone should see it at least once.  I’m sure if I went again next time we are in DC I’ll see even ore interesting details that I missed on this tour.

We ate lunch in the visitor center and then headed out for a walk on the National Mall.  We couldn’t have asked for better weather, bits of sunshine in between the clouds and a breeze to keep us cool.  We walked and walked and walked…visiting a sculpture garden along the way…

…and then finally sat down at the World War II memorial.

Our feet were tired, but we wanted to see everything.

When we finally got back to the hotel we rested for an hour or so, then walked the mile over Key Bridge to Georgetown for dinner.  A little Advil keeps the feet going.  Dinner at Clydes was wonderful…and the walk back across the Potomac for a good nights sleep in the warm night air felt nice too.

It was a good day.