White House Tour

Many months went into the planning of just the White House Tour.  We submitted our request to Senator Kohl in January and then we waited and waited and waited....... and waited some more.  We received notice  on the last day of school, June 7th, that we had been approved.  Whew!!
Getting to the White House from our hotel went fairly smoothly.  Gary rocks driving in DC!!  The one wrinkle in our plan was the parking garage didn't open as early as we needed.  We did end up finding meter parking nearby.  Not knowing how strict security would be with the appointment time, we dashed through a park to the White House only to find out the area we needed to be in was still about a block and a half away.  We were a bit late but based on the number of people in line, we were fine.
Security was very interesting.  First we waiting in a line to give a secret service agent our name and ID.  When I instinctively waited for some of the other girls, I was told to continue on and they did not continue until I did.  We then were given National Park info for adults and girls, crossed the street and waited in another line for screening.  The first screen was xray, the second was a medal detector where we also emptied our pockets.  We were then ushered out what appeared to be the backside of a trailer onto a sidewalk that led to the White House.  Upon entering the doors, we saw the Rose Garden.  We walked though a hallway of pictures - past and current administrations.  I wish I could remember all of the rooms we saw.  We were only able to look into most of them and there was a secret service agent located in each room for questions.  Before we knew it, we were outside.  The most photographed side of the White House is where we exited.  After some pictures, we made our way to a nearby gift shop.  In my haste to leave everything but ID's and phone, I completely forgot about having the girls bring money.  Thank goodness for Mom, Kelly and Dad, Gary who borrowed us some.
Next we were onto the Zoo.......