Mr. Randall Goes to Washington

What, You thought I was going to say Mr. Smith? Two weeks worth of sight seeing in four days, that's how I'm summing up my trip to Washington, D.C. Red-eye flight into Dulles (and I thought Ontario was out in the middle of nowhere), then a 35 minute drive into DC, and absolutely no sleep for over 24 hours. The moment my bags were in my room at the Watergate I was out of there. At 6:30 in the morning my brother and I hoofed it over to Georgetown and then hiked to the Foggy Bottom-GWU Metro station. If I only paid attention to the bellman I would have saved the wear and tear on my shoes to the metro station. I did so much (World War II memorial, the White House, and visiting "T-Bill" infront of the Treasury building (the duck who is nesting) on Saturday that I can't remember what I did (lack of sleep will totally do that to ya). After finally getting some sleep, Sunday was a trip to the north part of the mall, the Pentagon, and a visit to Arlington National Cemetery. Every time I have visited Arlington it has always rained. The rain really makes a depressing visit even worse. The Tomb of the Unknown soldier is always impressive to see and both the Challenger and Columbia memorials are nice (NASA memorials always seem small when Astronauts take huge risks). After that My brother and I returned to the Pentagon thinking that the Memorial Grove was open. After talking to a Pentagon Police officer he mentioned that the memorial is not even built yet and that they are trying to get private financing for the project. If you think traffic in LA is bad, just wait till Monday morning in Washington, D.C. The Metro was packed and the streets were at a crawl. After taking a Taxi to the Supreme Court, my brother and I had to meet with the Supreme Court Clerk's office and get our names added to the Marshall's VIP list. After taking care of that we took a guided congressional tour through Gary Miller's office (nice tour and a really nice staff, but I still won't vote Republican). After the tour was completed we walked though the maze know as the House and Senate Offices. In the Senate office building we found Senator Boxer's office and got passes to the Senate Gallery. Two hours of senate floor speeches later we left and went to Chinatown for dinner. Tuesday morning was the reason for the trip to DC. My dad was sworn into the United States Supreme Court Bar. Sitting in the main hall, chief Justice Rehnquist was impossible to hear when he spoke, this wasn't due to the sound it was do to the recent health problems the chief Justice has suffered. Every word sounded like Darth Vader (I'm not trying to make a connection between the two, it's just the way he sounded). I stayed for oral arguments which concerned a intrastate fee/tax (the term used depended on the justice commenting) on trucks. For the very first time I got to see the nation's past time in the nations capital. The Washington Nationals took on the Phillies at RFK stadium (or the Bobbie as some locals call it). The game was great, Nats won 3-1 and Chad Cordero was the closer (CSUF alumni). As for the stadium, RFK is a dump of a ball park. It looks like they quickly splashed some paint on the walls, built the dugouts, and then crammed in as many temporary beer stands as they could. While Angel Stadium was a complete renovation, RFK looks like a 30 year old car in the parking lot that just had the tires cleaned but the paint is still peeling. That night I hiked over to the Vietnam War memorial, Korean, and Lincoln monuments just to see what they look liked all lit up at night. One of the most impressive things a tourist should do is sit on the steps of the Lincoln Monument at night and look straight down the mall. (I'm still working on this post, I get the pictures up and the corrections done sometime tonight)