Nick's Blog

Didn’t happen.  But there were lots of guys with guns, so he might have been home.

Last Friday and Saturday Bryn and I had the very privileged opportunity to visit the White House.  We toured the “East Wing” and the 1st floor of the residence.  People were probably working in the West Wing because that was off-limits to us tourists.  Highlights of this part of the tour:

• The view from the “Blue Room” across the lawn and National Mall to the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial.
• The thick bulletproof plexiglass behind all the 200-year old single-pane windows.
• Learning about the online-lottery that selects kids for the annual Easter Egg Roll.  I guess I assumed it was some sort of “make-a-wish” foundation thing.  Originally the Egg Roll took place on Capitol Hill, but was canceled by Congress in 1878.  President Rutherford B. Hayes seized the opportunity to earn some goodwill and invited the kids over to the White House.  The move turned out to be probably his most enduring legacy: today the Egg Roll attracts 30,000 guests.
• Getting wanded by some super-cool handheld radiation geiger-meter device.
• The tough and heavily armed Secret Service officers serving as museum docents and discussing earnestly the upholstery, artwork, and china.
• After the daily tours are done, the staff rolls back out the giant area rugs and place becomes a normal live-able house again.
• Learning the famous south-facing facade of the White House is really the “back door.”  1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is actually on the other side, shown here:

Here we are in the driveway:

I wonder if any tourists start to go crazy and have to be subdued by the Secret Service agents.

The next day was the garden tour.  I enjoyed all the commemorative photos of presidents and first ladies planting trees in their suits.  Did they really dig that whole hole by themselves, dressed like that?  Or did the gardener do all the work and then just hand them the shovel?  Either way, how sweet would it be to play flag football when this is your backyard:

The White House itself is a big mansion, but it’s not outrageously big.  (The Hearst Castle has more square footage.)  But it’s all about the location and the real estate.  The grounds are huge!

The rest of the weekend was lots of fun as well.  The wedding was great and we definitely made the most of our time back in DC.  Thank you Kelly for your amazing hospitality!

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