The Capitol Building - exterior

Here we are headed out toward the US Capiol building. On the family season of the Amazing Race, there was a clue hidden somewhere by the reflecting pool in the National Mall. Many of the families were searching everywhere by the Lincoln Memorial, not knowing that there is also a reflecting pool in fron of the capitol building. Youl'll see that I did find the correct pool, and was very excited to go to the building and get a nice tour of the joint. You'll also see the picture of Sara on the way to the capitol building.

We sat next to the building waiting for Jennifer and Nathen, who were also going on the tour with us. We got there early so we could take some pictures and stuff. While we were waiting there was a group of non-American tourists who must've been on their way to their hotels because they each had luggage with them. Any how, at one point they left all their luggage next to the steps of the capitol building and headed out a few yards to take a picture. Before a blink of the eye, the men were surrounded by four gun dudes. I don't even know where most of them had come from. It was pretty cool stuff. From that point on I was always careful not to leave Sara too far behind me in fear of her getting surrounded by gun dudes.

The building is pretty much the coolest building in Washington DC. I don't want to give a long and drawn out history of it, but lets just say it was built in and around 1850, mostly by Africans, both free and slave. You'll notice the statue on the top of the dome (as seen in the picture below). That's "The Statue of Freedom", which is 19 and a half feet tall!! A full-sized replica of the statue can be found at the underground entrance to the building (or was it actually in the building? Fill me in Mike). You'll notice that there is no flag flying on the building on the day we took these pictures. A flag is flown over the right side of the building if and only if the House of Representatives is in session, and over the left side of the building when the Senate meets. Seeing how these pictures were taken in the middle of a standard work day, it makes sense that neither legislative body
was actually hard at work. I've got a lot more to say about our tour of the Capitol Building, but it definitely won't fit in this post, so on we go to the next one.