A Page Out of the History Books, Ford's Theater

I have read about Lincoln's assassination in history books and I have taught about it.  Seeing the very spot where Abraham Lincoln was shot was eerie and emotional. You are looking at the inside of the Ford's Theatre and at the Presidential Box where Lincoln was assassinated. 

At the entrance to the theatre there is a tribute to Abraham Lincoln. I thought this was interesting and something I had never heard of, office seekers. 

The office seekers. 

These white gloves were Abraham Lincoln's.  He actually wore them!!!  Wow. I just stared at them thinking about what he was actually like.

The boots displayed here were worn by John Wilkes Booth. You can barely see the place in the front that was cut open.  The boots were cut open because Booth' leg was swollen and the boots needed to be cut to get his leg out of the boot.

 A mural of the theatre featuring Keri of course.

 Lincoln was tall.

The gun!  Booth had several weapons with him when he arrived at the theatre. Six I think.  They were all recovered and they were on display also.  

So small but so deadly.  This gun killed a president. 

We headed up the narrow, winding staircase into the theatre and met this nice lady.  She demonstrated the path Booth walked to get to President Lincoln.  It was a very short walk.  She was very knowledgeable.

President Lincoln was sitting here when he was shot. Things certainly have changed.  No way an assassin could get that close to a president today.

We left the theatre and walked across the street to the place where President Lincoln died.

We were told that President Lincoln had to be moved from the theatre quickly. Of course! The owner of this building, across the street, said to bring him to his home.  His wife Mary Todd Lincoln and Abraham were together in an area in the back of the home.  Mary Todd was moved out of the room with her husband to this room because some thought she was being too emotional.  That is pretty unbelievable! Too emotional?

The other half of the room above housed the government. The government was run from this room after the shooting. I am not sure for how long.

 President Lincoln was taken here and he died the next morning.

Tuesday's First Adventure, The Library of Congress

Well, here we go! A once in a lifetime opportunity.  This is an experience we will never forget, visiting our nations capital and seeing Steve receive his Congressional Gold Medal.  I thank God we got to be a part of this.  We arrived in Washington D.C. Monday evening.  We settled in and made plans to meet Keri to tour D.C. the next day.  Boy, did we ever tour.  I know we just experienced the tip of the iceberg but our day was amazing.  We walked over 8 miles on this drizzly, rainy day.  We enjoyed every minute.  Thankfully, Keri had visited D.C. previously and she was willing to be our tour guide.  

This was the first statue of many that we saw.  Statues, police, security guards and secret service are all over D.C.  This is Nathanel Greene.  He was a major in the Continental Army during the American Revolution.   I mentioned to an Uber driver that D.C. would be a confusing place to drive.  He said it was made that way on purpose.  Harder to invade!  Interesting.  It does make sense.

 Our destination was the Library of Congress which is close to the Capital Building.

On our walk to meet Keri we also passed the Supreme Court.  It was just amazing to see all these places that we have heard so much about.

Here is the Library of Congress.  All the buildings are enormous and this was one of the biggest we saw.  I couldn't get it all in one picture unless I hiked back a long way.  This is the center.

The right side.

 The left side.

The inside was exquisite, superb, magnificent and more.  The Library of Congress holds collections of things I would have never imagined. Stradivarius violins, flutes, baseball card collections, Bibles, old maps and so much more.  I looked up how many items are housed in the Library.  As of 2017, 167 million items are in the Library of Congress. So many things it would take hours, probably days to really see everything.

This is the map room.  The Abel Buell Map was the first map made and published by an American after the end of the American Revolutionary War.

 The designs in this room were all created by small tiles.  That had to take so long.  The pictures are paintings.

 True, all tiles.  Someone had a lot of skill and patience.

 Here are some of the things we saw.

Keri and Mike outside the office of the Librarian of Congress. 

The Bibles were in different languages.  

 This was pretty fascinating to me!

The whole library doesn't show.  There are four categories of books in this library. They are listed below.  There is a lot of reading here!!! 

 The four categories.

 Thomas Jefferson held these books in his hands and read these books with his eyes.  Wow! How do we know that?  They have the green ribbons.

 There were at least 15 Bibles with green ribbons.  Glory to God.

This is the library where official people can go and research and study.  I am not sure how you qualify to be an official person. Senators, Congressmen, Judges?  My guess is if any of those people need research done they have people to do it.  I did know that we did not qualify to enter the room.

 So beautiful.  Stunning.

This explains the book in the pictures below.  It is a bit blurry but still readable.  

The Library of Congress is very difficult to describe with words on a page.  We were soon to find out that most of the day was going to be like that. The architecture in the Library of Congress is unique and just incredible.  Everywhere you looked you would see something that took your breathe away.  Imagine the work that went into all of this.  If I remember correctly, it took 11 years to build.

Snowshoeing for New Year's Day.

New Year's Day fun on Mt. Spokane, we even got a pin.  My thoughts on this group hike were that the experts running it would give some beginner tips on how to handle snowshoes because it was a beginner hike. That didn't happen but the two running it were very helpful in other ways.  The word beginner when we signed up just meant that it was an easy trail.  

We got to Mt. Spokane way early because of me.  I thought the roads might be bad but they weren't.  We pulled into the parking lot and no one was there.  Are we in the wrong place? Nope, just early.  It was raining a little. It did not rain while were were snowshoeing.  It was another beautiful winter day in Spokane.  

I think there may have been 20 plus people in this group.  It was fun to meet new friends.

Peggy and Marianne!

Off we go.  I love being outside in the winter.

There they are, Marianne and Peggy!

Mike and I did this trail last year. I had forgotten that it was a gradual uphill for over a mile.  When Mike and I went we stopped to take pictures, rested, talked.  In a group it was hard to do that.  Gotta keep up.  Made things just a tad more challenging but it was a great workout.

Once in awhile there was a stop.  There were two distinct groups.  Group one was a bit faster.  We were in the group two.  We kept a good pace.

Marianne.  We didn't get any rain on the trail but the snow was definitely melting.  Peggy was blessed with some of the snow falling off the trees.

We made it to the cabin (this is not the cabin) and then headed back down the trail.  It was a challenging snowshoe trail with very little resting but now the downhill.  We decided to take off on our own and not wait for the second group leaving.  Fun.

Peggy,  I love her spunk!

Mariane was tearing it up.

So glad I have buddies that are willing to walk out the door in the winter and hang out with me! A perfect way to bring in 2020!

Turkey sightings on the way home.  We didn't see any other wild animals which was a good thing.