Washington DC - day 3

The problem with meetings like this is that they always have tables full of food. Not good food either. Cans of pop, cookies, tarts and things like that. To make things worse I just sit in my chair for hours on end so naturally I wind up nibbling all day. To top it all of I never got a chance to run last week and now I'm here and I still can't run. That is why as soon as the meetings were over (about six) I said "to heck with it" and I put on my shorts and running shoes and headed out the door. This town was not made for running. They have traffic lights every block and their blocks are quite short. People looked at me funny too, I didn't see another soul running. I clocked my route on google and all together I ran nearly seven miles. Well, I guess I probably ran less than half of it but not much less. I ran the first two miles until I got to the white house. It was weird running because I had my camera in one pocket and my Treo in the other pocket. It was also tough running for another reason. In an attempt to eat less during my boring meetings I intentionally drink a lot of water. I'm talking like ten cups of water. I used the head before I left the hotel but by the time I got to the white house I was really needing a bathroom badly. By now it was well after seven and nothing was open so I checked out the Smithsonian museums as I ran by them. When I came to the national gallery of art I saw that the walls of the buildings formed spikes that jut out and provided a perfect place to conceal a desperate man. As Brandon and Ben would say, I have now marked the Smithsonian as my own. Kira would be proud that the one that I claimed is her favorite. There is a set of paintings in there that she wants me to go see. The problem is that they are all closed before I get out of my meetings. Friday we have a tour of the capitol planned and I'm hoping to have a little extra time. I made time last trip to thoroughly explore the air and space museum so I have to pick a different one this time. I'll go see Kira's paintings but I think I want to dedicate most of my time to either the natural history or the American history. Decisions decisions. So taking all that pressure off my bladder enabled me to run a bit better so I continued on to the capitol building. I was planning on heading right up the steps but they had it chained off with a sign telling me that they were constructing a place for the Presidential Inauguration after Christmas. I sure hope that will be McCain. As I stood there admiring the Capitol it started to rain. That didn't bother me too much since I was all sweaty anyway but I turned around and headed back to the hotel. About the time I got back to the Washington Memorial Alycia called me and we talked all the way back to my hotel. I am now drenched and typing this with frozen hands and it is really difficult. It was dark by the time I got to the mall so I hope the pictures aren't too blurry. I tried to rest the camera on stable items so I could get decent pictures for you.

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This is the Treasury Building. I imagine that this is where they set the interest rates and not the Federal Reserve like I said yesterday.
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Washington Monument, if you've never been here before you need to climb the insane number of stairs to the top of this thing. It is pretty cool and even though you need to do it once, you don't need to do it twice.
-------------------------------------The Capitol Building from across the reflection pool. This is where it started to rain on me.
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They wouldn't let me up on the steps. Of course, if I were in China nobody pays attention to signs like this. I would just move the barrier and walk on by.
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The back of the white house. It is pretty dark by now and I'm thinking about the extremely high crime rate in Washington. It seemed pretty peaceful though and all I had on me to steal was a cheap camera and and an old beat up Treo. I think I was pretty safe.