8/6/2014 - We visited the Capitol Building today and was somewhat disappointed as we were limited to what we could see. The Visitors center located behind the Capitol and is now the lowest level of the building accessible to visitors. In the visitors center is this replica of the statue on top of the dome of the capitol. (see below)

 This statue is the Freedom Statue replica that is to scale as the one on the top of the dome, however the one capping the dome is made of bronze. Her right hand rests on the hilt of a sheathed sword: and her left hand hold a laurel wreath of victory and a shield of the United States with thirteen stripes. The statue stands on a globe encircled with the motto:  E Pluribus Unum - Out of Many, One.

Here in the photo below is the capitol dome interior. Unfortunately for us they were doing some renovation work and we could not see the fresco that was painted on the dome ceiling. Around the walls of the dome hall were enormous paintings that encircled the entire room. They were of historical things that occurred in the emergence of our country.

As you can see the hall was packed with people. This was also a disappointment as you could not hardly move without running into anyone.

 The guy in the red jacket is giving the tour of the capitol in our group. You can see how many red jackets are present in the hall. One thing I noticed was that most of the people throughout our stay here in Washington were from other countries. It amazed me that there seemed to be more interest in our history by foreigners than of our own people.

 The capitol dome originally was made of wood and had a lower profile but was rebuilt later out of metal. This surprised me as I was always under the impression that it was all concrete or limestone.

This is Statuary Hall that was the original room for the House of Representatives. The hall was destroyed by the British in 1814 when they invaded and burned the city. The House of Representatives eventually moved to it's current chambers. The statues in the hall are donated by each of the states of notable persons in their states. The tour guide indicated that each state can replace the statues periodically with other statues. He gave us a time frame but I have forgotten the length.

 This is the ceiling of the chamber in statuary hall. It was designed to allow speech to be heard anywhere in the room however it did not do it's job. In fact the representatives complained that speeches could not be heard at all. However, a unintended consequence was that even though speeches couldn't be heard on the podium. You could hear your opponents across the room whispering and talking among themselves. The sound directing aspects of the room were off by 180 degrees.

The final disappointment was that we were not allowed into the chambers of the House or Senate. If you wanted to go in you had to go across the street to the house and senate office buildings a get permission of your representative or senator. Could you imagine how long this would take given the hundreds of people there today. They need to work out a better system than this.