Ray remembered this song about Cherry Hill Park, the name of the campground we are staying at.  According to the Internet, the song was about Cherry Hill, New Jersey. 

Here was today’s plan.  The temperature was going to be near 100 degrees so we were prepared to be flexible depending on how we felt throughout the day. 

Union Station:

I took a picture of a mushroom party for Melissa on the Capitol grounds!

We enjoyed our tour of the Capitol. 

Each state can give two statues to the Capitol to be displayed there.  This is one of Wisconsin’s, Robert La Follette.

After our tour, we had lunch in the Capitol Cafe. Nova got this white chocolate Capitol building for dessert.

We tried to go to the Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality Monument but it was closed.  Instead, we went to the Smithsonian National Postal Museum.  We took a guided tour with a volunteer docent.  Their pride and joy at this museum is 4 Inverted Jennies that are on long term loan to them.  One of these stamps sold for 2 million dollars recently so imagine what a set of 4 would go for! 

It was nice and cool inside the museum and it was hard to go back outside.  The Capitol doesn’t allow any food or drink inside and I had a dry throat all day despite drinking at every bubbler I saw. 

Even the squirrels were hot.  We noticed several of them laying “balls sprawled” on the dirt.  Funny enough, a post from the National Parks Facebook account was on my feed on the bus ride home today.  They called it “splooting” which is much more polite than my name for it.

After a cold drink from Shake Shack, my mom and Ray went back to the campground with the girls for some swim time.  They had some public transportation drama on the way (a train deboarded and went out of service and they had a long wait for the bus).  Meanwhile, Nole, Asa and I went back to the Capitol with “gallery passes” we got from our senator, Tammy Baldwin’s office to observe the Senate in session. 

No phones are allowed inside but here is what it looks like from the gallery.  Photos inside the Senate chamber are rare, this one is from 2010 of Senator Byrd lying in state.  The last photo taken before this by the media was in 1961! 

Here is the photo from 1961:

The chambers look nearly the same since this building opened although back then there were only 31 states.  They added more desks as more states were admitted, the last two desks were made and added in 1959. 

They gave us a booklet about the Senate when we gave up our phones and I read it cover to cover.  The Senate itself was pretty boring.  We were there for “morning meeting” at 4:30pm which allows senators to talk about any issues important to them and have it officially recorded.  Three senators used this time to talk.  Two republican senators spoke.  One about Chinese adoption issues and one about Iran and the threat to America and Israel. The democratic senator who spoke was Chuck Schumer who spoke about the Big Beautiful Bill and whether the president should have bombed Iran without first consulting the Senate.

The biggest surprise was how few senators were present.  Apparently, if they are busy, they can wait in their offices until they are needed for a vote.   Bells chime and a light board in their offices indicate when it is time for “quorum”.  They need a minimum number of senators present to vote so that’s when they call for quorum. 

After watching for about an hour, we decided we had had enough and left for the subway. We left DC for the campground 2 hours after my mom and Ray and made it back only 1 hour after they did due to the trouble they had. 

We went swimming and Nole and I took a tractor wagon ride over to my mom and Ray’s cabin where the kids were watching Harry Potter on their TV until it was time to hit the hay.