The Wilkinsons on The Web: D.C. Vacation-5th day

Today included a tour of the capital building courtesy of our Congressman Chet Edwards' assistant as our personal tour guide. He also set us up with a tour of the Printing and Engraving office...where money is made! In between our tour times we also visited the Air and Space Museum which again seemed to be Sydney's favorite part. Before that we ate an "American Indian" lunch at the Museum of the American Indian. We wanted to check it out more...but we didn't want to miss the Air and Space Museum...so we made a choice to skip it. They had authentic Indian food there...so we had a unique lunch. It was yummy! Our first tour was of the capital building...it's pretty cool inside...murals on the ceilings and walls. Each state gets to place 2 statues in the building too...Texas' statues are of course Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston. We also got to go inside the room that is shown on TV when congress is in session...no pictures though. We also couldn't take pictures during our tour of Printing and Engraving...but it was pretty cool to see all that money going through the process till it's finally REAL currency. However...the poor people who work in the inking department...ugh...that part smelled toxic...I don't know how they do that every day w/o getting sick. It's NON-toxic though...just smelly. This was really one of my favorite days! Here's some pics.

Me and Syd out in front of the Capital Bldg.

It's kinda hard to tell what's going on here...but the inside of the bldg is so ornate...this is a view from inside the main area where the dome is.

This is a view looking straight up at the dome inside.

This is a close up of the painting on the inside of the dome.

Most of you have seen a statue of Sam Houston or Stephen F. Austin before...so I chose to show this picture of King Kamehameha, one of Hawaii's statues. It's decorated with REAL gold and it's the heaviest statue in the place...so much so that it started cracking the floor where it stood so they had to move it to another location that could handle it...and they cut out the tile floor under it so it wouldn't crack. Wish I could remember how much he said it weighed to give you an idea...but it was pretty huge.

Inside the Air and Space Museum...so much to see.

One of their displays of the planets

Sydney looking out from the 2nd level

Erin hangin' with the Wright Bros.

This is actually a display from the Museum of American History which is currently under renovation...they had one wing of the A&S Museum which showcased some of their cooler items...R2D2 and C3PO here, also Dorothy's Ruby Slippers, the chair that Archie Bunker sat in, some historical clothes worn by famous people, lots of cool things...makes me sad that it wasn't open. Maybe next time.