Road Trips!

Time to put up the next batch of pictures. These are from two different trips we made. Last weekend we went up to Palmyra and the week before we went to Great Falls National Park in Virginia. Great Falls is pretty close to Washington so we drove out for the afternoon on Columbus Day.

Last weekend we went to Palmyra. One of the guy here is from State College, PA and his parents were nice enough to let us stay at their house. We hung out there one day and drove up to Palmyra the next day. 

Great Falls National Park - I realized that I don't have a great pic of the falls. Google it.

We climbed down below the falls and played in the water.

Penn State Campus. I thought BYU was a big school, PSU has 45,000 students!

It was a little rainy. Luckily I found an umbrella at Ryan's house.

The Crew: Jordan, Ryan, Jordan (back) and Rachel, Allison, Jason (front). We are Ryan's high school's homecoming football game. Pretty exiting- they call them the "little lions" (PSU is the lions).

It was a 4 hour drive up to Palmyra, so by the time we got there we didn't have tons of time, but we got to see the important stuff.

On top of Hill Cumora.

Statue at Hill Cumora.

Palmyra Temple!

View from the Temple. The small hill you see in the break in the trees off in distance is the Sacred Grove. Very Neat.

View of the newer "frame home" from the original Smith cabin.

Pathway from the Smith cabin to the Sacred Grove.

The Sacred Grove.

Though it was a short trip I really enjoyed the opportunity to see placed that I have so often learned about. It was neat to see how close these sites are to each other. I especially appreciated being able to see how close the Sacred Grove is to the Smith Farm and to walk through the leaf covered pathways there. I know that is the place where God prepared and called Joseph Smith to be a Prophet.

Elder Oaks

This past week at work Elder Oaks came to testify before the Finance Committee. It was cool to hear him speak and sit so close to him. I got to go up after to say hi and shake his hand. Here is his speech; you'll see me sitting behind his left shoulder.

Fun at the Hart Senate Building

So we had some protesters in atrium of our office building today. It ended up being pretty entertaining to watch the policemen chase them all around and out. Click here to see a story about it with some pics.

Catching Up

Been a while since my Valley Forge post! I apologize to my three faithful followers, I'll do better :) Here are some pictures and major events from the past few weeks.

My internship is going well, it is getting more busy which is good. Homework is starting to pick up too, which isn't super fun. We still have time to do fun stuff though, it just doesn't feel as much like a vacation as it did for the first few weeks. Probably a good thing.

The two closest grocery stores are organic only -- I'm not sure what they are suggesting about the ice. Oh yeah, and the dry cleaners across the street is "organic." I don't know what that means.

K Street on my way home from work (on bike)

Paddling around the tidal basin in front of the Jefferson Memorial

This isn't a great picture, but if you look carefully you can a person rappelling down the side of the monument. They have been inspecting it for cracks from the earthquake.

White House. We asked the guard what would happen if someone jumped the fence. He said it happens on occasion and they usually make it about 15 yards before they are stopped by dogs.

Jefferson Memorial -- one of my favorites

Washington Monument from inside the Jefferson Memorial

 Last Friday for our class we went to the Newseum, which is basically a museum dedicated to the most important things in the news from the past century. It seems like a strange idea for a museum, but it is full of cool stuff.

A portion of The Berlin Wall

Really cool 9/11 exhibit: taxi door, lamp posts, jet engine, and landing gear from ground zero.

Radio tower from the top of the World Trade Center. The posters on the back wall are front pages of September 12, 2001 newspapers from across the word.

Observation deck at the Newseum!

On Saturday we went to Gettysburg and Harper's Ferry for the day. Cool to see places that I've only ever heard about in school and books. The tree's are just starting to change colors and the weather was perfect.

Gettysburg: view of the "Devil's Den" from the top of "Little Round Top"

Crossing Potomac river in the bus on our way to Harper's Ferry. Apparently Lincoln said it would be worth crossing the Atlantic to see the views at Harper's Ferry.

View from Jefferson Rock. The Potomac and Shenandoah rivers meet right behind the trees behind my head.

View from the bus as we drove away from Harper's Ferry. It is hard to see, but the river is interesting looking because the bottom is made of horizontal rock slabs that make cool ripples

Well that's all for today folks. Have a great week!

The next week

The highlight of last week was our trip to Valley Forge and Philadelphia. The weather was cooler, but still nice. It was neat to see many places that I had only ever read about before. We stayed at some kind of hostel type of thing called the American Freedoms Foundation. It is located just outside of Vally Forge. I still don't really know what it was, but they had beds for us and made us good food. We didn't ask any questions :)

The entrance to the American Freedoms Foundation. I guess they were excited to see us - it says "Welcome BYU."

 We left on a bus early on Friday and got to Valley Forge at 9 or 10 am. After dropping off our stuff we picked up our tourguide who rode on our bus and taught us all about the park while we drove around and stopped to see things. He was hilarious. He loved telling us about George and "Martha Baby."

Martha & George in the Valley Forge Visitors Center. (Me and Carli- she did the opening ceremonies in 2002 like Karlie!)

Walking up to the top of the hill where the troops stayed for the winter.

Apparently there were thousands of these little cabins built to house the soldiers. There were 16 living in each cabin!

An arch on the top of one of the hills. We didn't stop there so I don't really know much about it, it was dedicated to the soldiers that stayed the winter in Valley Forge. The caption reads "Naked and Starving as They are We Cannot Enough Admire the Incomparable Patience and Fidelity of the Soldiery" (George Washington).

The house that George Washington rented from a local to stay in. It is just down the hill from where all the soldiers lived. Our guide was very exited to tell us that the handrail in the house is original. So yes. I've touched a handrail that GW touched. Cool.

Me and our tour guide.

 After getting back from Valley Forge we ate dinner at the place we were staying and then had a special visitor. A Thomas Jefferson impersonator (?) came and talked to us for about an hour about his life. He was really good and answered any question we could come up with.

Thomas Jefferson

The hostel place

The next morning we woke up and went to Philadelphia. It was fun and nice to be familiar with some of the stuff from my trip with Dad a few years ago. I also got to see a lot of new things. I don't how Dad and I got out of there without eating a Philly Cheesesteak, it was one of my favorite parts of this trip. After spending the day in Philly we ate dinner at a pizza place together and rode back home on the bus, getting home just in time (unfortunately) to watch the BYU Football game. There was no rising or shouting.

The Liberty Bell and surprise guest - Allison.

Getting real Philly Cheese Steaks at "Jims." After waiting 30 min I was a bit skeptical, but it was really good.

I'm not sure what the significance of this box is, but it was in the Benjamin Franklin Museum. I guess he liked to be carried around?

The bride to New Jersey. It was starting to get a little cool outside.

Week 2

A couple of highlights from this past week:

Eight of us went to see the Nationals-Dodges game last Tuesday night. It was rainy all week but luckily there was a break that evening till about 10pm. The game was better attended than most National's games because it was the debut of their new pitcher Strasburg. I'm not a too much of an MLB guy, but apparently he is kind of a big deal. After a few minutes of rain delay in the 6th inning we decided to leave because it was getting late and cold. When we left the game was tied... but unfortunately they lost.

Nats game

For our class on Friday a speaker came to talk to us about the war in Afghanistan. He is an orthopedic surgeon and served in a small town for six months. He ended up doing just about everything he could have done medically to help locals and soldiers with medical problems (from c-sections to treating burn victims).

After he spoke to us we went to the Pentagon Memorial. It is about a 15 min metro ride to the west side of the city. The memorial is simple, but very powerful. There is a bench for each of the victims of the attack with their name on it. The direction the benches sit is dictated by whether they were in the plane or the building. The benches are all in order from the youngest to the oldest (3 to 71 years old).

Me in front of the Pentagon. The Airplane hit just to the left of my head on the second story.

Pentagon Memorial

On Saturday I went up to Delaware to volunteer for the Romney Campaign with a DC-area group. We went to a small town fair to collect signatures on a petition to have Romney put on the primary ballot. Apparently each state required a different number of signatures; Delaware requires 500. I was proud to have the most in our group with 41 signatures :) After spending a good part of the day in a small town called Milford, DE we headed back to DC to watch a disappointing BYU game... maybe they will show up to the first AND second half this Saturday.

 

 

Milford, DE

The "Bay Bridge" over Chesapeake (?) Bay on our way to Delaware

Today after work there was a short 9/11 remembrance ceremony on the steps of the Capitol we stopped at on our way home from work. Almost all members of the House and Senate were there; Pelosi, Reid, Boehner, and McConnel each spoke for about five minutes.  It was powerful to hear their perspectives, especially with regard to the passengers of Flight 93 who likely saved the Capitol. After they spoke there was a prayer and the band played "God Bless America" while everyone sang along.

Congresspeople

Walking home from work

Have a great week!

First Week

The first week has been awesome. After a prep class on Monday we set out to find our offices so we would know where to go on Tuesday morning. After running around the city for a few hours we came back to the Barlow Center for FHE where we met a few of the local students from GWU.

I started my internship on Tuesday. After a lot of paperwork I was taken to the my office and assigned to work with the part of the committee that focuses on trade. I spent most of my time this week studying current trade agreements and other pending legislation so I'll be up to speed (or at least closer to up to speed) when congress goes back into session this Tuesday. Since we have class on Fridays I only worked three days last week and still feel quite green. I'm excited to go back this week and continue to figure things out.

There is an awesome senior missionary couple that lives across the street and helps us with everything. They do a great job of teaching the institute class on Tuesday nights. This is their third mission in only a few years, pretty amazing examples of selfless service.

This week we found an awesome deal on bike rentals. There are little bike stations all over the city and you can pick them up and drop them off all over the place. It ends up being a great deal compared to the metro and now I am a lot more familiar with how to get around the city.

Bikes!

Our first bike adventure was around the mall on Thursday night. We ate dinner in Georgetown and rode from there to the Lincoln Memorial, past the Washington Memorial, around the Capitol, past the White House and back home. It was a lot of fun to zip from one to the next and see them lit up at night.

Lincoln at night

Our next bike adventure was to a neighborhood called Adams Morgan, named after some local elementary schools that somehow played a role when schools were changed from segregation (I heard). We went to a Falafel place for lunch, wandered around a bit, and then headed back home. The Falafel shop had a cool no smoking sign so I took a picture. It is kind of fuzzy.

On Saturday we went to the DC Zoo. It is pretty big and especially great because it is free. I think the most exotic animals I saw were the pandas. I don't think they have them at Hogle Zoo... so it was probably the first time I had ever seen pandas! Wow. I also  enjoyed the other animals that reminded me of Madagascar like the zebras, monkeys, leemers, etc.

Panda

 

 

Baby Pandas

Scott and I in BYU football shirts,  ready for the game.

We finished the afternoon by sitting on the edge of our seats and biting our nails off for a few hours while we watched BYU play Ole Miss. I was happy to see them pull it off just in time. Next week Texas may require us to play offense in all four quarters of the game.

Tonight (Sunday) we went to the Capitol to listen to the National Symphony play John Phillips Sousa and Duke Ellington in their annual Labor Day concert. It was pretty amazing to sit on the grass and listen as we looked out over the mall.

The Stage