Day 4

We woke up bright and early to go on our tour of the Capitol. We had to meet at our U.S. Congressperson’s office. Pete Sessions office looked like the Texas Flag threw up- seriously Texas themed everything. We took a very patriotic picture in his office.  Then someone walked us down to the Capitol Visitor Center and we started our Capitol tour. For all the hoops we had to jump through (sending our Congressman a letter, waiting at least an hour), we got to see three rooms in the whole building. A plus of planning the tour beforehand was that we got tickets to the Senate and House of Representatives galleries so we could sit in and watch proceedings. Unfortunately, Congress was out of session so all we did was sit in empty rooms.

We ran over to the botanical gardens and looked at the pretty flowers and then we walked on over to Chinatown and ate at Matchox Pizza. Alex had eaten there before and it was pretty good.  We jumped over to the National Archives and saw the original Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, and Constitution. Very interesting!

Alex really wanted to go to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, so we battled hordes of minors to see the exhibits. We thought about doing something afterwards but we were beat so we spent the evening watching cable (a real treat!) in the hotel room.