The White House

I was having lunch with my sweet Mary this week and it reminded me that I have not finished my Washington DC posts so here goes... Thanks Mary Mary! Love you!

It is no secret that I am an Obama supporter so it was especially cool to be granted a tour of the White House while we were in DC for the IREM Conference in April. It was like an act of Congress to get in (haha!) but after about 3 checkpoints we were good to go!

The interior looks just like you think it will and the house itself is smaller than expected - not really surprising when you consider when it was built though.  It is basically a museum but we found out that once they close the tours for the day everything is put back in order and used by the house for entertaining, etc.  It was really amazing to think that we were walking the very same halls that the Obamas and all presidents before them have walked.  Like so much in DC, the presence of history around you is ever-present and a little overwhelming on occasion.

Two noteworthy things happened while we were at the White House (besides just the fact that we were AT THE WHITE HOUSE!)... 1) One of the people who was at the conference with me actually got to pet the First Dog and 2) as we left the building (and were finally able to take photos!), we were standing on the front steps of the White House (shown here) when the final Discovery Space Shuttle flight was occurring prior to its installation in one of the Smithsonian Museums. The shuttle, perched on top of a working airplane, flew by two times - one in closer proximity to us than the other.  Pretty neat!

Washington DC is amazing place.  I really don't know how else to describe it.  More than once I had tears in my eyes from the sheer magnitude of the city, the beauty, the history...  I have lost so much faith in our political system these last few years; HOWEVER, being in our nation's capital gave me hope.  The city is like a visual reminder of where we came from and how strong we all are together...  if we can just get back to the point where "together" is seen as a good thing.