Vacation Post #3
I applied for a tour of the White House through our congressman, expecting to be turned down. I sure was excited to find out about a week before our trip that we were approved for a tour! We were given a tour time of 7:30 AM on June 6th. First tour of the day--okay!
Remember how exhausted we were at the end of our day at the Capitol? Well, the very next morning we woke up at 5 AM to be ready in time to board the shuttle to the metro at 6:10. The kids and I woke up tired but quickly rebounded and were ready to go. Poor Derek never really recovered from how he felt the day before, and he had a very rough morning. He could keep nothing in his system, yet pressed on and came with us anyway.
Everything worked like we needed it to work. We were on time with our shuttle. The metro was on time. We arrived at the correct White House gate by 7:10, and we needed to be there by 7:15. Whew! It felt SO good to make it there in spite of my poor husband being sick the entire morning. Yes, he was sick at the metro station, on the metro, and again at the other metro station. Poor, poor Derek!
It was another beautiful day. While we waited in line at the gate, a park ranger passed out some White House brochures to the adults and activity books to the kids. We also watched K-9 German Shepherds and their handlers roam around the grounds. Then we were told to line up for our security check. Derek and I handed over our drivers' licenses and the boys were asked what their names were. When the Secret Service agent came to Aaron he said, "This must be A-A-RON!" I thought to myself, "How does he know Aaron's nickname? They sure did extensive background checks on us, ha!" (His brothers call him A-A-RON all the time.) Seeing the puzzled look on our faces he said, "My name is Aaron and people called me that all the time while I was growing up." I thought that was pretty neat!
Aaron went through security first. One at a time, we went around the corner and stood on a mat with our feet shoulder-width apart. While we did this a K-9 German Shepherd stood on the other side of a partition and was trained to alert at the scent of explosives, I think. Of course we all made it through to the next security point, but it was a little bit unnerving for me to send my kids around the corner while I had no idea what was around that corner. It's a mom thing, since I'm pretty sure everyone else thinks that's ridiculous. :) I mean, we were at the White House!
The tour was self-led, but very specific on where we could go and what was off-limits. Each room had at least one Secret Service agent. Of course we were not allowed to take pictures. I couldn't even carry a purse. I had to leave that at our hotel. We walked through the ground floor entrance and saw the library, Vermeil Room, and China Room. Then we walked through hallways up to the first floor. There we saw the East Room, Green Room, Blue Room, Red Room, State Dining Room, Cross Hall, and Entrance Hall. I loved it. I tried to find as many eagles as I could, since I read in the kids' activity guide that there are quite a few. I thought it was pretty neat to be in this historic place.
Once we stepped outside we were allowed to take pictures. We were still within the gates and it was cool to look out at the people on the other side looking in. :)
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| Staring in to the very bright sun |
Since Derek had some recovering to do and the rest of us still needed to eat breakfast, we took the metro back to the hotel. By 9 AM the boys and I were sitting down at breakfast and it was surreal to think we had been to the White House and back already. It was an awesome experience, but once again, we were tired. With the way Derek was feeling we decided we needed a day of rest. So on the 70th anniversary of D-Day we relaxed and napped in our room, watched the coverage of the celebration on TV, and enjoyed some much-needed down time. Oh yeah, and we had the pool all to ourselves!
For supper we ventured out and found a Famous Dave's, which was our favorite restaurant experience during these 6 days in DC. The food was great, we all laughed a lot, and it just felt so good to be rested and well. My fever was still there, but Advil kept me feeling fine. After a restful day we went to bed and woke up to a very full Saturday. More on that next time!
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