Gehlke Family 2007 East Coast Vacation travelogue -- Day 12

The place we stayed isn't your run-of-the-mill Holiday Inn Express. It's a full-service hotel located in the busy downtown of Washington, D.C. It features a restaurant, bar, deli, gift shop, nine floors of rooms, and a rooftop pool. Photo by Glenn.

The satellite trucks are already in place, and the crowd is starting to assemble outside the National Museum of the American Indian for Al Gore's Live Earth concert with Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood. Photo by Glenn.

A statue of assassinated President James Garfield stands at the center of the traffic circle in front of the Capitol. Photo by Glenn.

Glenn and Ben pose for a photo on the Capitol steps. This is as close as you can get nowadays without a tour ticket. Look closely and you'll see our roaming mole, Mr. Resetti, on the steps near Ben's feet. Photo by Roni.

Res is already building up quite a travel resume. We'll need to find him a pin from the Capitol to go with the Lancaster County pin he's already wearing. Photo by Glenn.

We put a lot of miles on our sneakers every day of our stay in Washington, but on this day in particular. We've already traveled quite some distance from the Capitol in the background. Photo by Glenn.

The Smithsonian Folklife Festival is in full swing on the mall, while the distinctive red towers of the Smithsonian Castle towers over it in the background. Photo by Glenn.

Hope you like the Washington Monument because you're going to see a lot of it over the next three days. It is impressive no matter how often you see it. Roni takes time out for a portrait. Photo by Glenn.

Wow, that's pretty tall... Photo by Glenn.

Fifty flags rim the perimeter of the Washington Monument, one for each state. Ben occupies his idel time by lying on his back to gaze up at the monument's peak. The Lincoln Memorial is visible in the distance. Photo by Glenn.

We wanted to get as far as the Lincoln Memorial today, but because we had to get back to the Capitol for a 2:50 p.m. tour we decided not to visit until tomorrow. Photo by Glenn.

What's this? A smile? Better be careful, Ben, or folks might get the wrong idea that you're having a good time. Photo by Glenn.

It was a bit disappointing that the statue atop the Capitol dome is undergoing repairs and was shrouded in scaffolding the weekend we got to see it. Necessary, but disappointing nonetheless. Photo by Glenn.

Taking the guided Capitol tour gets you inside the rotunda to view some of the impressive artwork. This fresco, titled "The Apotheosis of Washington," is 180 feet above the rotunda floor and was created by artist Constantino Brumidi in 1865. Photo by Glenn.

In this detail from the fresco we see George Washington, sword in hand, ascending to heaven to become a god. He likely would have hated such a depiction, but it seems a fitting tribute to a man who has been deified as one of the fathers of our nation. Photo by Glenn.

Ben and Roni look and listen during the tour guide's presentation. Photo by Glenn.

The Frieze of American History is 19 frescoed panels that rim the wall of the rotunda. On the right edge of one of the panels, "Death of Tecumseh," you can see where the artist cleverly concealed his face on the trunk of a tree in the picture. Look just above the fern. Photo by Glenn.

John Trumbull's original painting depicting the signing of the Declaration of Independence is in tthe Capitol Rotunda, but you can also find it on the back of the $2 bill. Photo by Glenn.

The National Statuary Hall is the former meeting place of the House of Representatives. Photo by Glenn.

At the end of the tour visitors get to see the Crypt, which was supposed to be the burial place of George Washington. But he caught on to the idea and rejected it. The star at the center of the floor where Glenn and Ben are standing is the geographical center of Washington, D.C. Photo by Roni.

Leaving the Capitol tour by way of the front entrance affords the visitor this view looking west along Capitol Mall. Photo by Glenn.

One of the faces carved near the roofline of the United States Botanic Garden. Photo by Glenn.

We take advantage of a rare moment when there were no people around to get a photo of Roni in the Botanic Garden. Photo by Glenn.

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A walk on Capitol Mall

Saturday, July 7 (Day 12) — We knew that there would be crowds when we got to Washington, D.C., but we had no idea how large they would be or how they might impact our ability to see the things we hoped to see on our two-plus day visit here. We got to find out this morning, when we left the hotel a bit after 10 a.m. to begin our tour of Capitol Mall.

The weather was warmer than we had seen it in several days. We knew it would be a scorcher, so I put on sunscreen before we left the hotel. Still, Roni carried the aerosol can in her bag just in case we needed to use it during our walk. We headed east past the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum because I thought it would be good to start with a peek at the Capitol, which is about half a mile from our hotel. To get there, we had to pass the American Indian Museum, which lies just to the east of the Air & Space Museum. It just so happened that this was the location of one of the concerts in a worldwide Live Earth event to draw attention to global warming. The concert had been on-again-off-again for some time, and only was confirmed a couple of days ahead of today. It featured a short performance by country singers Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, with an introduction by former Vice President Al Gore. Needless to say, it drew quite a crowd.

We made our way around the museum and concert stage just before the event began, and took advantage of everyone being tied up there to make our way to the Capitol. Being 10:30 in the morning the crowds were light but growing. We took our photos of the Capitol from various angles before we saw the signs directing people to the staging area for a guided tour. Wow! I had thought that public tours of the Capitol were no longer offered. We hustled our way up to the entrance tent, ready to join the next tour, where we were met by a National Park Service security person who said we had to have a badge in order to enter. Oh. So, where do we get badges? He directed us to another tent a few hundred yards away, at another corner of the Capitol grounds. We went there and picked up three free time tickets — for the 2:50 p.m. tour. Ouch. That meant we had about four hours to kill before we returned.

That changed our plans just a bit. We couldn't afford to stray too far into the mall because we had to be able to make it back in time for the tour. Not that there wasn't plenty to see in the meantime. We walked west through the center of the mall, where there was a Folklife Festival taking place in honor of Virginia (the 400th anniversary of Jamestown is this year), China and Ireland. We weren't quite sure why the focus on those three locales, but it seemed to be attracting a large crowd. We were all in the mood for something to eat, so we bought some drinks and then an Irish sausage and baked bean dish for $9 that we split three ways.

Our wanderings took us next to the Washington Monument, which we have reserved tickets to tour on Monday morning. Unfortunately we never received the tickets in the mail, so now we have to remember to bring our confirmation number to the park service's kiosk before our scheduled 10 a.m. tour time. The monument is impressive, even if you don't choose to go to the top of it. It looks exactly like the Bunker Hill obelisk in Boston, except taller. The flags surrounding its base are an impressive sight. From there you can see the Lincoln Memorial across the reflecting pool to the west, the Capitol to the east, and just a small piece of the White House to the north. Roni wanted to go as far as the Lincoln Memorial, but I convinced her that we didn't have time to do that and make it back to the Capitol by 2:50. We'll try again tomorrow.

Getting close to 1 p.m., we began heading back east on the mall, stopping at Smithsonian Castle just because it was there and Roni was intrigued by its unusual appearance. There was a short line to get inside because of a security checkpoint. They merely looked at our bags this time. It sort of comes with the territory if you want to see anything of national significance in this era of terrorists. Once inside we checked out the gift shop, then found a deli with reasonable prices on sandwiches. We found a table and ate our lunch, hurrying toward the end because it was after 2:15 by the time we were finished and that left us barely half an hour to get back to the Capitol.

Ben was feeling stressed out from the crowds, so we didn't travel as quickly as we probably would have. Nevertheless, we arrived back at the tour tent at 2:47, just in time to get in line. We didn't realize how lucky we were to get tickets at all, as they are distributed on a first-come, first-served basis and there are no online reservations available. They were sold out well before our tour began.

We proceeded to the security tent, where Roni had to get rid of our sunscreen because it was in an aerosol can, which was among the forbidden items. At least this time I didn't have to remove my belt. It seemed the screening process was a bit more lax for the Capitol than it had been for the Statue of Liberty. We met our tour guide for what was about a half-hour tour of the rotunda, the former congressional meeting hall, and the lower level beneath the rotunda known as the Crypt, which included the original Supreme Court chambers. It was interesting learning about the history of the paintings in the rotunda, and of the statues that line the walls inside the congressional chamber, two for every state.

By the time our tour was done, so were we. The heat — perhaps in the 90s — combined with the mild humidity and all the walking we had done had left us tired and dehydrated. We managed a little time for a peek inside the U.S. Botanical Gardens, but the place was so doggone crowded that it was hard to move about and enjoy any of the displays. (Note to self: Don't visit tourist attractions in major cities on the weekend.) We decided it was time to head back to the hotel, where we wound up staying for the rest of the day.

I can't complain too much. It was good to get some relaxation time, and we had already seen many of the sights we came for. We went down to the lobby to grab some dinner (salads, because all the sandwiches were gone) and refreshments (Starbucks coffee drinks, because there were no ice cream shops nearby). We stayed in the hotel room and watched cartoons and the NASCAR race from Daytona.

Tomorrow we'll try to get to the western mall attractions we didn't get to see today, as well as check out the Air & Space museum.