Finally, here are pictures from Bartlett Bear and my visit to The Capitol. I actually gasped out loud when the taxi pulled up in front of the Capitol - I had no idea how MASSIVELY HUGE this building was! Did you know they can fit the entire Statue of Liberty inside the Dome and still have 30 feet left until the ceiling?!

According to our tour guide, the center dot on the floor of the dome (pictured below) is not only the center point of the Capitol Dome, but it is also literally the exact center of Washington DC! As for the picture of the John Quincy Adams square - that was the point in the Capitol where you can hear someone whispering 50 yards away! Our tour guide walked to the other side of the room and whispered, and we could hear him as if he was standing right next to us! The square shows where John Quincy Adams sat during Congress and he was the one who realized the sound problem!

After our tour, I then was allowed to sit in the top balcony of the Senate Gallery! They were in session! So I got to sit and watch a senator from Kentucky argue for some farm subsidy, and then a senator from Michigan talk about a tax break for children and single mothers. It was like watching C-Span live... I watched our government at work! Pretty neat stuff and brought back some fond memories of when I was a staff writer for NBC's "The West Wing." It was really cool to see the real life Washington D.C. versus the fictional set on the Warner Bros. lot!

Hope you enjoyed my picture galleries. I'll post some more galleries later this month about the research portion of my DC trip once I finish my novel! Okay, it's back to the writing batcave for me...