Reliving The West Wing Tour

When we were back in the States in March, we stayed part of the time with my folks in Richmond, VA. Fortunately, that put us in relative proximity to Washington, DC. Nicki hadn't been there since she was in 8th grade, so we decided to take a day trip up to see some of the sites on March 14. We were hoping to get to the White House for a tour, but it didn't work out that day (more on that in a bit). Instead, we started at Arlington Cemetery, where we visited the plots of the Kennedy brothers and their family, and we timed the visit right to see the Changing of the Guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Wow! What a spectacle. Those guards are well trained at what they do.

Afterwards, we headed over to downtown Washington, DC, to see the popular memorials. My dad and mom recently purchased a camera very similar to my own, so it was fun seeing my dad test out the new toy in a photographer's paradise. Since I had recently visited DC for work (and got some great pictures then), I was just interested in shooting "fun" pictures and didn't really focus on finding the perfect shot. As a result, some of my shots turned out pretty interesting anyway. As I mentioned before, we couldn't do a White House tour that day because we just ran out of time... good news is that we did better our second try.

On our way home from DC, we got a call from my mom, who was babysitting Josh at the time. Apparently, some family friends have a daughter-in-law with access to the West Wing of the White House. She offered to give us a tour of the place on Sunday, March 18. Even better, she mentioned that the President would be arriving by helicopter (Marine One) sometime that day and we had a shot at witnessing the action.

So we drove up again on Sunday to DC to meet our family friends (who I'll keep anonymous at this point until I get approval from them). We met them at the northwest corner of the White House property, just outside the fence line. When they arrived, we got confirmation that the President would indeed be arriving soon in Marine One, so we immediately went through security and headed straight to the South Lawn to wait with the rest of the onlookers, which was probably about 20-30 other people.

Within a half hour or so, several choppers flew overhead. As the first one continued to circle the airspace, the second one prepared for landing. I've never been that close to a helicopter as it was landing before and let me tell you, it's exactly how it's depicted on TV - lots of wind blowing and lots of noise. A marine exited the chopper first, followed by the President and several secret service guys. We were told that the President might stop and shake a few hands, but unfortunately he just waved to the crowd and scurried his way into the White House. Regardless, it was really exciting to be there to see it all.

After the Presidential detour, we made our way over to the West Wing tour. We saw the Rose Garden, the Oval Office, the Presidential Library and several meeting rooms. We even saw the outside door of the "Situation Room", which is where the essential staff go when the metaphorical poo-poo hits the fan. We weren't allowed inside, though, for obvious reasons.

One funny story: As you can imagine, the President and the Vice President have staff photographers (and good ones at that) who travel with them to events and shoot pictures for framing on the walls of the White House and West Wing. These photos are apparently updated every few weeks, so it keeps the place looking fresh and is a decent little reminder of where the Pres and VP have been recently. As we were walking through the VP wing, Nicki and I stopped at a very familiar photo, a panoramic one that was shot from inside the USS Kitty Hawk when VP Cheney was in Japan visiting the troops here. Nicki and I mentioned that we attended that speech, so we got a close look at the picture and found the very distorted shadowy figures of us in the lower corner of the frame. Our wonderful tour guide mentioned that it was probably the first time that people on the tour found a picture of themselves on the wall.

So now Nicki and I can brag to our family and friends that we have had our pictures up in the West Wing of the White House!

We were fairly limited on taking pictures inside the West Wing, but I've posted the shots that I was allowed to take in our Gallery, dated May 11, 2007. Check them out!