The Tours

What are the first two landmarks that come to mind when you think of Washington, DC? The Capitol and the White House? I think that would have been my answer before we moved here. Over the past month we have taken tours of both, each with a twist. We didn’t just tour the Capitol; we toured the Capitol Dome. And we didn’t just tour the White House; we toured the White House at Christmastime.

Harvey found out in November that the dome was soon going to be closed for a couple years for repairs and restoration, so he helped arrange for his office staff to take a tour before it was too late. One of the members of the staff was afraid she wouldn’t do well with all the stair-climbing on the tour, so Harvey asked whether I could take her spot. She agreed and also offered to watch Judah, so I planned to go up to his office on Monday, December 2, to join the staff for the tour.

As I was about to get on the bus that afternoon, Harvey called and said that his coworker had decided to try the tour after all. I almost didn’t get on the bus, but Harvey convinced me to come on up in the hopes that we could figure out some arrangement where I could still go. If not, I could always just go straight back home. By the time I arrived at the office, Harvey’s coworker had arranged for a neighbor friend of hers to come up and sit in the office with Judah while we did the tour. So it was on.

We met our tour guide in the Capitol crypt, and she led us up the narrow steps through the Capitol building and into the dome structure. 

Our brave tour guide leading us up the steps
between the inner and outer domes

From the steps in the dome corridor

The first stop was a balcony right above the frieze around the base of the dome. Being even this high above the rotunda floor was amazing. The visitors on the floor were specks below. The guide gave us some information about the frieze and its history, including the fact that one of the artists, Constantino Brumidi, fell when his chair slipped as he was painting and only survived because he grasped and clung to the rung of a ladder as he was falling. 

Looking down at the rotunda from the first stop on our climb

The Frieze of American History

Soon we would be face to face with the Apotheosis of Washington;
this view is from our first stop, right above the frieze.

Another rotunda view before heading up higher

Then we went to the next level, the circular balcony just below the interior of the dome with its fresco the Apotheosis of Washington, also by Brumidi. The acoustics made it possible to clearly hear someone standing on the opposite side of the balcony speaking in a normal voice. The visitors below were tiny specks now, and it was awesome to be so close to the paintings that we normally see from a distance on the ground.

Anyone afraid of heights?

I'm not!

There he is, Washington the divine, flanked by Liberty and Victory.

The portion of the fresco depicting science:
Minerva teaching Benjamin Franklin, Robert Fulton, and Samuel F.B. Morse

Enjoying the views above and below

Next was the walk up the stairs to the outdoor balcony below the dome. It was cloudy and chilly that day, so we thought it might be really cold up there, but it was calm and cool and beautiful. The landing was narrow, but there was room to enjoy the view and walk around and take some pictures. Since skyscrapers aren’t allowed in DC, the view is unobstructed and you can see for miles. It was breathtaking.

Library of Congress

Supreme Court

Senate Office Buildings

Union Station

Pennsylvania Avenue

Rayburn House Office Building

The tholos upon which the Statue of Freedom stands

The Washington Monument,
its scaffolding gradually coming down

Posing with the Washington Monument:
see it over my shoulder?

I found out later that the day of our tour was the 150th anniversary of the completion of the installation of the Freedom statue on top of the dome and that there had been a special about the dome on 60 Minutes the day before. I watched it later and it was fun to see the reporter doing all the things we had just done. For more on the dome, see the Web site for the Architect of the Capitol.

I won’t go into as much detail about the White House tour, which was a self-guided walk-through beginning at 8 a.m. I loved seeing it decked out in all its Christmas glory, with a total of 24 trees. Every room we saw had at least one tree in addition to wreaths and garlands and lights. The walls of the entry hall displayed pictures of past presidents and their White House Christmases, past White House gingerbread houses, and the official White House presidential Christmas cards. The East Room housed a beautiful gold, colorful Nativity scene, and the State Dining Room held this year’s gingerbread house, a model of the White House atop a hearth, all made of cookies, pastries, and candy. Everything was warm and lovely.

Entry hall tree

Looking at pictures of past White House Christmases

The lawn

My Christmas cutie

Sparkle and shine

Posing with the Presidential Pups

The tree of books; looks like Lincoln approves.

The Library

The China Room

Nativity in the East Room

The East Room

The Green Room

The official White House tree
(not sure how they squeezed it in there)

From the Blue Room

Each room has its own sign and description.

The State Dining Room

The 2013 Gingerbread White House

Sparks for President!

Front porch tree

Merry Christmas from Washington!

After we toured the White House, we drove to the Kennedy Center. Harvey hadn’t been there yet, so we decided to go look around and see if we could arrange a tour. There were volunteers who gave free tours, so we had one to ourselves, and she was great. She really involved the kids and made things interesting for them. She explained that the Center was full of gifts from other countries to honor John F. Kennedy and the arts. She showed us sculptures, rooms, chandeliers, and artwork from countries like Sweden, Israel, and Senegal. She took us into the concert hall and the opera house. We spent a couple hours with her, and we had fun.

Grand Foyer; the chandeliers were gifts from Sweden

Concert Hall

They turned on the snow machine just for us!

Psalm 150 is the theme of this wood panel
covering the wall in the Israeli Lounge.  

The theme of the Israeli Lounge ceiling mural is
musical events described in the Old Testament.

This doorpost in the Israeli Lounge holds an inscription of the Shema.

The Opera House chandelier was a gift from Austria.

So those would be our final DC tours of 2013, a fitting end to a year of exploration and new experiences for the Sparks family. We are spending Christmas back in Oklahoma, so DC, we’ll see you again in 2014. May you bring us many more adventures as we write another chapter in the Sparks story!