Washington, D.C. - Day #2

Day #2 in Washington, D.C. was promising to be just as hot and humid as the day before. We decided to be even more careful to avoid heat exhaustion again.

There's so much to see in our nation's capital, but we just didn't have time to see it all. We wanted to spend more time with our 1 year old grandson.

We had an early breakfast at the Fairfield Inn and began our walk to the Cannon House Office Building to meet the staff of Mark Takai's office.

We had not gotten the news that Mark Takai had passed away from pancreatic cancer while we were onflight to Chicago. Soon after that Hurricane Darby was due to hit the islands so we didn't know he had suddenly passed away until we reached Maryland.

We were scheduled to be at the Cannon House at 9:30 AM and didn't know what to expect. It was a longer walk to get there than we'd anticipated and my ShedRain solar umbrella suddenly broke. You couldn't close it.

Once at the Cannon House, we left our broken umbrella with security (they couldn't close it either) and walked through the silent hall to Mark Takai's office.

It was awesome to see the offices of other state representatives.

We were shown Mark Takai's office. His two staffers said they were shocked at his quick passing as well, but offered to still take us on our tour of the capitol building. It was so sad to see Mr. Takai's empty desk.

 As we passed into the hallway again we saw that you couldn't drink from the water fountains because of lead in the water.

Kayla took us to see the King Kamehameha statue. At over 6 tons, it's the heaviest statue in the capitol building. Next to it was the Statue of Freedom which sits on top of the capitol dome.

Kayla then took us through Statuary Hall. Most states have two statues. We saw the statue of Father Damien which is identical to the one in front of Hawaii's State Capitol building.

We then visited the Crypt. I got this from Wikipedia:

On the ground floor is an area known as the Crypt. It was intended to be the burial place of George Washington, with a ringed balustrade at the center of the Rotunda above looking down to his tomb. However, under the stipulations of his last will, Washington was buried at Mount Vernon. The Crypt houses exhibits on the history of the Capitol. A compass star inlaid in the floor marks the point at which Washington, D.C. is divided into its four quadrants; however, the geographic center of the city lies near the White House.

We were told that only the senators had a special private rail that takes them from their offices to the senate floor. Since the median age of the senators is 76, perhaps they need it more. 76? Wow! That was surprising.

Because the capitol building is under renovation we were not allowed on the rotunda floor. It was another disappointment.

Still, we did get to see the chambers that was once used by the supreme court justices and KC learned a bit more about our government. Once outside we could see the Statue of Freedom from afar. My camera's telephoto lens was able to get a more close-up view.

Our next stop was the National Museum of the American Indian. Since KC had studied several Native American tribes this past year, it was especially interesting. Art and I spent a lot of time at the exhibit for native Hawaiians.

Unfortunately, it was too hot to walk to the White House so we went back to the hotel.

KC had been using my ShedRain solar umbrella, but we finally had to throw it away because there was no way we could fix it.

We got our van and drove back to Maryland to see our little grandson.... oh... and his parents as well.