D.C. Chronicles: Day 1

"The lucky daughter." That's what my sister called me. She said that to my dad when she asked about us going to D.C. My dad takes me on little trips with him sometimes. In the past seven years we've been to New York a couple times, Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis and Toronto. I wouldn't say I'm the "lucky" one. I'd say I'm the "unmarried" one who has the freedom to take off on trips. I guess that is lucky. Of course Lisa did come with us to New York both times. She was even married for one of them.

I've only been to D.C. Once. I went there with Maria and Kaila and we had a great time. I also remember us having a great hotel. Dad and I are staying in the Hilton Homewood Suites in downtown D.C. Our hallway smelled like chocolate chip cookies on the way down here.

We had a full itinerary today. The nice thing about traveling with Dad is that I get to be a little kid and let him handle almost everything. I don't have to think about how to get to where we need to go. I just follow. Until we get lost and then I step in. But another good thing about traveling with dad is that we have similar traveling styles. We're both kind of nerds. We love history and museums so I don't need to worry about the people I'm with being bored.

NATIONAL ARCHIVES

I visited the archives last time I was here, but we just looked at the Constitution. There is so much to see there! We scheduled a private tour, which was good so we got a glimpse of everything before we looked around on our own.

Highlights: Of course the rotunda with the Delcaration of Independence, Bill of Rights and the Constitution. We were the first tour of the morning so it was empty. There was a power and reverence in the room.

It's amazing how much they have to keep. They even had some of President Kennedy's doodles during a meeting he was sitting in on. My favorite part was where I got to make (well, edit) my own documentary about D-Day by selecting various clips. The movie played back on a big screen for everyone passing by to see. I could have spent hours there. It exceeded my expectations. I went a little nuts in the gift shop. Nothing like my mom, but I bought a few books.

SUPREME COURT

That was a cool building. We heard a lecture in the Chambers. Our intern/guide was very good. Let me see how many justices I can name: Roberts, Thomas, Scalia? and then the woman's starts with a G...shoot. I was kinda tired at this point. The eleven minute video was really great though. I felt a renewed interest in American History and politics.

THE CAPITOL

I toured this last time I came. Our guide (Dean from New Jersey) was brand new. Considering we were his first tour he did pretty well. But he was totally making stuff up. I knew I couldn't trust everthing he said when he called the paintings in the rotunda "photographs". And when he told a story about one of the paintings with Thomas Jefferson and John Adams he said they were rivals (true) but he also said how Jefferson was still alive when it was painted and how he had the artist paint him more attractively than John Adams who had already passed away (false). Jefferson and Adams actually died within hours of each other.

CAFE MOZART

This restaurant was recommended to me by Newell Dayley, board chair of the ARts Council and Dad's colleague at BYU. It was German food, which I like, but I have a thing where I like to order fish when I go out, especially if trout is on the menu. The watiress scolded me saying "that's not German" in her thick, Japanese accent. I almost said, "neither are you" but that would have been rude. She was good though. She called me "Honey" which, is a little weird, but I prefer it to "ma'am".

Good day. We got our judicial and legislative fill. Tomorrow we'll get the executive branch tour when we visit the White House.