DC: Day Three, Pt 2--The Capitol, again. The Mall, again.

So, the night before, I had asked the kids what they most wanted to do or see on our last day. I had a list of awesome things we had not yet done, and suggested we could also return to any place that we had not gotten enough of. In that last vein, I tried to get them to say they wanted to go back to the Air & Space museum, so everyone could experience that hands-on learning room. Instead, they all wanted to go back to the Capitol building, and try to see some lawmakers at work. 

So, after the monuments marathon, we headed over to the office of our Congressman, Jimmy Panetta, to score passes. And while I was there I demonstrated my civic duty of urging him (via his aide) to support the upcoming Parental Rights bill. 

Another gorgeous day at the Capitol. 

The artistry all over the city amazes me.

I already explained how our walk around the monuments took us way longer than expected. So by the time we got our passes and walked over to the Capitol, around 1:00, unfortunately the House had just ended for the day. So we just visited the empty chambers (which was still cool, esp. because we had a very friendly guard explain things in the room). Later I saw on the news about the shenanigans in the House over the confirmation of Kavanaugh, and was kinda glad we had missed it! A historical moment, to be sure, but not in a good way--I'm glad my kids didn't have that example of adults behaving badly as their one impression of our government at work. : (  (I'm not taking sides on the issues at stake in the confirmation, but on how the entire process broke down that day, and there was a distinct lack of respect by the lawmakers for one another or the rules of conduct.)

So after the Capitol, it was back to the Mall, where we slowly worked our way from one end to the other, seeing last sights on the way.

Detour through the U.S. Botanic Garden

Bananas!

We only meant to walk through quickly, on our way to other things, but we enjoyed ourselves so much we lingered. 

I did not choose to spend time at the exhibits in the American Indian museum, only because I felt we had seen excellent exhibits already all over the country on all things American Indian. But I loved the architecture of the building.

And we stopped in for a snack--authentic Plains Indians fry bread!

Tasted a bit like a big soft cracker. Fun to eat something I've read about in books. : )