Luke rides a train and other adventures in DC

We rolled into Minnesota this morning after a fun-filled week visiting the Causey's in Washington DC. It would take a few weeks to detail everything we did, but here is a quick rundown of the first couple of days. On Monday, my sister Lauri, my mom Lois and I headed to DC and spent the day going through the Holocaust Museum. We decided that fun-filled was not an accurate way to describe that day, but rather sobering. What a sad piece of history. Lots of information, video, pictures and displays. A heartbreaking thing to see, but a reminder of what we are capable of, both good and bad.

On Tuesday, we got out of bed early and hopped on the metro and headed into DC! Luke was particularly excited about this day because he got to ride a train for the first time in his life. He was pumped.

Our first stop was the Pentagon, where Uncle Charles is now on assignment. So a funny story about this next picture. I thought Charles looked so spiffy in his dress uniform and Luke was so cute sitting on his lap that I snapped a few pics. Well, security wasn't a big fan and came over and demanded I delete them. Then stood over me and watched while I did delete them. Well, almost all of them.

We were fortunate enough to actually have 2 tours of the Pentagon. The first was the "official" tour given by a member of the Honor Guard, who walked backwards so he could face us the whole tour. A few quick facts: 23,000 people work in the Pentagon. There are stores, banks, restaurants, even a DMV in the Pentagon. The hallways have a lot of historical artifacts and displays, Donald Rumsfeld is responsible for getting the displays set up.

The second tour of the Pentagon was "unofficial" and given by Charles' chaplain assistant. We saw lots more cool stuff. I could go on and on, we saw the memorial chapel where the plane hit the Pentagon on 9/11, learned a lot about the structure of the building (the windows cost $10,000 a piece, and not one of them shattered on 9/11), and so much more.

After the Pentagon, we hopped back on the train and headed to the US Capitol Building. We had an incredible tour of the Capitol. We got to actually go onto the House floor (no photos allowed), we met the House Sergeant at Arms, in the photo below, and got to go out onto the Speaker's balcony (the last group shot of all of us, with the Washington Monument in the background).

The meeting with the House Sergeant at Arms was probably one of the most fascinating things we got to do. The current House Sergeant at Arms is Bill Livingood, and he has been at his post for 17 years. Prior to that he served in the Secret Service for 33 years. He was on JFK's Secret Service Team, and eventually was the Head of the Secret Service. He told us story after story, about the car JFK was riding in when he was assassinated, showed us a picture of him on secret service detail with President Nixon, how he ended up with the flag that was flown on the moon in his office, and then let us all hold the House mace, which was made in 1841. If you have no idea what that is, google house of representatives mace. Here is Andy with the mace.

And that was just Monday and Tuesday! The next couple of days included lots of walking, lots of monuments and memorials, and the air and space museum. And that is not including the Thanksgiving meal and Rookfest! Good times! Thanks Causeys for being such wonderful hosts!