The Halls Of Government

Our second day in DC. We have to be at Congressman Schiff's office at 10am. Our host says we MUST leave at 8 to get a parking spot and allow for traffic.

With only 4 hours sleep, it was really hard to get out the door and we left about 8:45. oops. We get off the freeway at the Capitol at 9:30. After much stress looking for street parking, and getting turned around by one way streets, we park at Union Station. It is now 9:55. I called the Congressman's office and let them know we were running late. A very friendly member of DC's finest gave us further pedestrian-friendly directions because you can't walk from the Senate side to the House side straight across the front any more.

A very nice intern in Rep. Schiff's office gave us a private tour of the Capitol. At the end we went to see the House in session and they were voting when we arrived. We saw our Representative vote. We looked at the time and it was noon. We had a White House tour at 1 and you have to arrive 15 minutes early so we had to go. I didn't even have time to go to the gift shop!

We hot foot it back to Union Station. Dividing to conquer, one goes to the car to leave the purses (you can't take anything into the White House except keys, money and id) and the other goes to get Cokes because we haven't had anything to eat yet today and we really need the caffeine to keep going.

Then we hop on the Metro and we arrive at 12:50, only 5 minutes late! The friendly Ranger said we could go on in. Rep. Schiff's aide had told us that he didn't think we would enjoy the tour of the White House as much as the Capitol. Another friend had said it's not as great as it used to be. They were both right. We finished in 15 minutes. But I had never been before and now I have so I am glad that we went. If I am ever in DC at Christmas time, I might go back and see all the Christmas trees.

We took the Metro back to Union Station and had a nice lunch at America. The menu had something from every state. My only complaint was that their "Hollywood, CA" cobb salad was NOT really a Brown Derby style cobb. The food was delicious and the service was fabulous.

A bit of shopping and then we were off to Baltimore. We had tickets for the Pete Yorn show at the Sonar club. We had encountered quite a bit of traffic going to get our luggage and we thought it was better to drive to Baltimore early. We had a recommendation for a restaurant and it was quite close to the club. We arrived, parked and walked over to the restaurant.

The sign on the door of the restaurant said "Closed For The Summer". Either they are REALLY late or REALLY early, but they are definitely closed. So we went to the deli nearby and ate outside on the plaza.

We headed back to Sonar for the show. Tonight was even better than last night. We have had six or seven hours sleep in the last three days, but we managed to last through the whole show. I hadn't seen the whole Moses Mayfield set the night before, but I did tonight. I really liked them! I obviously am already a huge fan of Minibar and Pete Yorn or I wouldn't be at their show in BALTIMORE!

When we arrive home, we leave a note for our host on the counter: "Don't wake us up in the morning!"

All of our scheduled itinerary items are finished. We are now at leisure. We can sleep.