Pedroza's Place

(HINT: Click on the pictures to enlarge them)

As the southern bookend to the National Mall, the Jefferson Memorial shows me the southern nature of Washington DC. The original plan for the Capitol was to include parts of Virginia, but that was not to be. If Virginia had been included I think that the Jefferson Memorial would of made for an appropriate gateway. Due to our travel plans we got to see this monument both early in the morning and right before dusk:

The view at dusk is remarkably more dramatic, but as you can see there were a lot more people there at dusk than dawn.
Almost like all US Capitol monuments you will be immediately struck by the size.

Cast in bronze the Jefferson Memorial towers above you. Construction began in 1939, but because of the shortages of World War II, there wasn’t a bronze statue built until 1947 (in the interim they used a plaster statue).
Besides it’s enormity, I really enjoyed looking at the columns.

One thing you may or may not notice is that Jefferson is pointed to the White House:

I asked the Tour Guide about that and he said it was done that way by the designer so that the current President would always know someone was looking over his shoulder. Don’t know if it is true, but it sounded cool.
I don’t think we think of Jefferson so much as a architect, but his design influence is definately felt within every Federal building in existance.
The last thing I think about when I think about Jefferson is his words. Inside you will find excerpts from the Declaration of Independence and from A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, 1777.

Admission to the Jefferson Memorial is free and there is no screening, but there are plenty of armed park rangers standing by so I wouldn’t act too crazy if I were you!

The corner stone for the White House was laid in 1792, but it wouldn’t be until 1901 when it would get it’s official name. It was then that someone asked Theodore Roosevelt about the place and he said “oh, it’s just a big white house…” The name stuck and here we are, or were I guess.
Getting to the White House is relatively easy. Luckily, you can ask any local and they know where it is and can tell you how to get there (and if they can’t they they have some major direction problems).
While getting to the White House is easy, getting inside the White House is not. Most of my pictures as you can see are from far away. One of my favorite pictures I took was from up top of the Washington Monument looking down onto the White House (I wondered if the guards could see me up there):

Had I not gotten into the White House it wouldn’t have ruined the trip for me, but I do think that the White House is an iconic image of Washington DC. Despite all the tour guides calling it “your White House,” you just can’t go up and ring the door bell and ask to be let in. There are a lot of bells connected to the White House, but trust me you don’t want to hear them. To get into the White House you are going to need an invitation.

Invitations are free but unfortunately, I don’t know any members of the Presidential family and so getting a Presidential Invitation was out of the question. The next best thing was to get a Congressional Invitation to the White House. To get a Congressional Invitation you need to be recommended by one of your US Congressional leaders. Like every US citizen (if you are not a US Citizen you have to be recommended by your US Ambassador) I have three of these people (2 Senators and 1 Representative) and so about 6 months before we left I wrote to all three. I sent them my request along with the full names of everyone in my party, addresses, DOBs, Social Security numbers, and a description of what valid form of picture ID we were going to use (in our case California issued driver licenses, children under 5 do not need a picture ID). I followed up regularly with my Congressional leaders’ offices to see how the progress was going, but was ultimately told I wouldn’t know anything until at least 2 weeks before we left. As it turned out the first Senator I wrote to lost my paperwork, the second Senator tried, but was not able to get a spot, and ultimately 10 days before we were about to leave our Representative Jerry Lewis got us an invitation. This to me was funny because our two Senators are Democrats (the same party of the President), but our Representative is Republican. Anyhow, soon enough we got our invitation in the mail.
Normally to get into the White House you have to be a group of 10 or more people. We were only a group of 4, so our Representative put us together with another family named Flynn (don’t know them at all). The paper we were given had this name on it and a confirmation code. We were told to bring the paper with us at our appointed time and we could go on our tour. All good except for the fact that at 5:30 EST the day before our tour we lost the paper we were supposed to give to the SS (Secret Service). Lucky for us, we don’t live in EST, we live in PST. So even though Representative Lewis’ Washington DC office was closed, the Redlands, CA office was still open. Jerry Lewis’ staff was very helpful to us. The Redlands office blackberried the Washington DC office, which then emailed the White House, which then put us on a list for the Secret Service and so we were still allowed in. Talk about cross-country teamwork!
To start the tour you have to find the General Sherman monument.

This is actually across the street from the White House. The somber mood of General Sherman on his horse I think denotes the seriousness of the entire security process. As if getting back-grounded wasn’t enough you must also get booked. Oops, I meant screened, but having seen people get booked I wouldn’t say it was much different. You are not allowed to bring anything that doesn’t fit in your pockets and your pockets better not contain anything illegal or you will be escorted out by several people with Colt 45s. When it comes to the White House you also have to know that you are not allowed to bring in any recording device. This was kind of funny to me because they allowed me to bring in my cell phone which clearly had recording capability, not that I had any motivation (first tour I ever had where the docents were fully loaded) to use it inside.
Since I wasn’t able to take pictures inside the White House I have some pictures I got from an archived President Bush website(during his administration there were no tours) and a scan of our tour map:

You enter the White House by descending into the East Wing. I took this photo from outside the White House looking at the East Wing:

The East Wing is where the First Lady’s offices are. I am not sure what business goes on in those offices, but her staff was very busy going in and out of locked doors. This was interesting to me because Michelle Obama was in Spain when we were visiting. I wonder if her staff doesn’t get to travel with her or if it is like a Broadway production where there is more than one cast. If so, I have to say the local cast was very engaged in their work.
After walking through a long hallway we found ourselves under another underground hallway (a lot of Washington DC is underground) that lead to the China Room, Library, and Vermeil room. It also lead to the West Wing (the executive offices of the President), but we were only allowed to go half way down the hall. Even though I didn’t get to see the West Wing I learned that the current Press Room used to be an indoor pool. I also learned a little trivia about the Vermeil room. The Vermeil room houses portraits of 20th century first ladies. The most striking of which I think has to be of Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Onassis Kennedy (she really liked accumulating those names didn’t she?):

As interesting as the portrait was, it was the name that was more interesting to me. Apparently, vermeil is when you take silver and dip it in gold. It makes the gold even shinier (I didn’t even know that was possible). This Vermeil room is filled with a lot of objects decorated in this manner, hence the name. Heading back into the hallway a Secret Service guy told me a story of President Obama setting up a ping pong table in the hallway and playing an epic ping pong tournament (he wouldn’t tell me who won).
Going up a well worn marble staircase, we entered into the East Ballroom.

The painting of George Washington is of course the famous one Dolly Madison saved in the battle of 1812, and consequently is the oldest thing original to the White House. The piano is a Steinway and was donated 1938.
After going through the East Ball Room, you get to walk through the Green room, the Red Room, the State Dining Room (where they get daily fresh flowers), and the blue room:

The Blue Room was my favorite room of the house. According to the Secret Service it is the Obamas’ favorite room too. President Martin Van Buren was responsible for it’s color when he first painted the walls in 1837.
To go through the main floor rooms, you get to go through the Cross Halls.

This particular view of the Cross Halls to me is cool because it is the one that they always show when the Secretary of State is going to meet a foreign leader.
After the tour and we were outside again I was allowed once again to touch my cell phone and so I took these photos at the North door.


Undoubtedly the closest picture I will ever get to take of the White House. Anyhow, the tour was awesome. Definitely, one of the highlights of our trip.

BTW, if for some crazy reason the President does read this I think I would make perfect fit for a White House Staffer:

See what I mean, now all I need is one of those red A pass cards and I will be all set!

Our vacation in Washington DC is rapidly coming to an end. It has been very fun but it has also made for some very long days. When traveling to Washington DC you come to find that there is some great public transportation, but you will still end up walking a lot to see everything. AJ held up really well to all this transportation. He even managed to find a friend or two on the way. Yesterday AJ met this kid named Eric from Chicago, Illinois. They had a lot of fun playing with each other:

Even so the walking did eventually catch up to AJ:

At those points we tried to find a bus, because carrying 30 pounds for a long distance is not that fun:

AJ didn’t get many naps on this trip, but luckily he wasn’t too fussy. He did however have his “collapse” point. For AJ this was at about 9PM. After that it didn’t matter where he was, he was going to sleep:

Apparently, 7/11 has called it quits…

Well AJ thought it was funny…

To see this sight for yourself you will have to go to the U street-African American-Civil War-Cardozo metro stop. How’s that for a mouthful of a metro stop name?

Someone get a curator quick! Something weird is starting to grow on Mrs. Johnson’s hat:

What do you mean it supposed to look like that?!
Oh well, I guess there was no crisis after all. I guess I will just have to show you random pictures of AJ now.
This is a picture of AJ at the Reagan Center. I will talk more about this place later, but for now, you can know AJ was eating a chocolate ice cream sundae:

You gotta love the expression on the guy behind AJ. It kind of has a “what the heck are they doing here” look to it (you have to understand that the Reagan Center is not really a place where tourists go, but we figured since we were from California it was OK).
This picture is of AJ’s toy of the day. We bought it for him and he did not let go of it until he fell asleep:

Kind of looks like he is doing an Elvis impression to me.

Well, I don’t really have the time to write now, but I wanted to at least share some pictures with you.

Yesterday we went to the White House, Ford’s Theatre, the National Archive, the Hard Rock Cafe, and Chinatown. We learned a lot of things, but some things still remain a mystery to me. At Ford’s Theatre I saw these hats. Now I know which side the blue was on, I know which side the gray was on, but can someone remind me which team was the pink on?

 You’d think they would of said something on the tour about that…

Today was the first two days of our trip. I know you probably think that was a typo,but it wasn’t. To get to Washington DC from California it takes a lot of traveling. For our trip we first took the car to the Ontario International Airport. There we waited and took a plane to Phoenix, to Baltimore. After a brief (4 hr) sleep in Baltimore we took a train to Union Station, Washington DC. It has definitely been a a very interesting trip so far. I hope to slowly get that all out here in the blog soon.  For now, however, let it be known it has been a long trip and I am very glad to get some shut eye.

Our last day in camp was a rainy day. We had scheduled to stay longer and maybe do some more fishing, but with the rain everyone just wanted to pack up and go. So after a quick breakfast that is exactly what we did. The only thing that was interesting was the night before one of the leader’s tents was attacked by an army of red ants. We tried everything we could to keep them away from the tent. In the end the only thing that worked was drenching the area around the tent with lots of water.
On the morning of our last day it was interesting to see the pollen pool. It was kind of like a river of yellow fuzzy things:

Day Four saw us back on the trail. This time we were camped out at the Clyde group campground in Big Pine Canyon. Working on our 10 mile hike we had two goals: see First and Second Falls and Palisade Glacier.

For Palisade Glacier we didn’t climb all the way to the top but we got pretty close. Along the way we saw a bunch of trail workers:

It is amazing how strong they are, I was huffing and puffing my way up and they climbed that trail as if it were nothing. What is more is they had a lot of equipment with them.

After checking out the glacier we turned directions and went to look for the falls. The first one we saw was First Falls:

This was relatively easy to get to, it was fun to see it. It is amazing to think of how much water runs through that water fall.
(video here)

After staring at First Falls for a bit we went on to Second Falls. The idea was to hike up the trail and just see it from a distance. Which we did:

It was cool, but decided that we needed to get closer so up we went. The view from up close was amazing. It is fun to feel the power of the mist hitting against you. After climing up to the falls we had to make the descent down:

After getting down it was just a matter of following the creek back to camp:

On the way back we some interesting stuff.
A horse outfitter:

A old abandoned house:

And a Cottonwood tree:

After 10 miles it was another exhausting day, but it was very beautiful.

Day 3 found us back at camp, which was good because I was tired from the day before. Although our feet got a little bit of rest it was still a busy day. On this day we finished the Fishing Merit Badge which basically meant a bunch of knot tying and talking about fishing emergencies. What is a fishing emergency you ask? Well basically just think hooks. Anyhow, it was also Wilderness Survival day. To start Wilderness Survival Day we had to first find a wilderness.

Not too far away from our camp we found this really cool grove of Aspen trees:

It kind of reminded me of the sacred grove. First thing the boys did was start building shelters. We told them they could use anything they had on them and anything they found. Here is a picture of one of the shelters:

In this particular case the scouts found an old palette and what looked to be an abandon burlap sack, kind of wierd finding that in the middle of the forest, but it is what they found so it was valid. To complete their requirements they had to sleep in the shelter one night, and it rained a little bit. I have to say they did a better job than I did when I got this merit badge. When I did the Wilderness Merit Badge I did it in the winter and built an Igloo, building an Igloo is a lot easier than building a leantoo. Anyhow, since it was taking a lot of time for the scouts to build their shelters I went with another Coach (in Varsity Scouts the leaders are called Coaches not Scoutmasters) and did some of my own reconanse. After some time we soon found a town called Aspendale. It was a very small town, but there was a resort there:

In this town we found a pay phone and overpriced ice cream sandwiches. We decided the scouts didn’t need to know about that so we went back to camp and didn’t say anything about it.
Back at camp we found the scouts demonstrating fire starting:

The bow method is really one of the harder methods. My favorite method involves a 9 volt battery and steel wool. Try it one day, but watch your hands, wouldn’t want you to burn yourself.
Fire was started and it was one to preparing food. For food we made what is called a Hobo Pack:

Basically all you do is cut up a potato, some meat, vegetables, and wrap it up in aluminum. This is then cooked right on the coals of your fire. It is very simple. Also simple was our refridgerator. Yes, we had a refridgerator out there and we had nice cold milk everyday:

It was a fun day, I didn’t make a shelter. I just “cowboy” camped by showing the scouts how a shelter and hiking pole make a great shelter:

It worked well, but there was a lot of mosquitoes out there and I got bit pretty good.