White House...The People's House

We tried to go to the White House, residence of the president.  Nope.  You can't just pop in to the Obama's and crash on their couch.  You need to contact your congressman at home weeks ahead to ask permission and get approval.  BUT... you CAN visit the White House Visitor Center down the street.  It gave us a movie about the history of it...things like the fact George Washington pushed for this residence and picked the spot for it as well as helped design it or that Harry Truman's piano fell through one of the floors and  he disassembled a bulldozer and reassembled it inside so he could gut the inside and rebuild the floors.  The photos of that are neat!




It's a long way from when  President Lincoln let people sleep in the entry way if they traveled far to see him and had to wait the next day.  The White House went unfinished and was a wreck when John Adams moved in.  There was still open pasture around when Lincoln lived there and rode his horse all over town.  Two assassination attempts were made on him prior to the shooting at Ford's Theater as he rode around town but he asked that they never be made public.

The White House was not one of our MUST DO items on our list but it was more interesting than we thought.  There was a Junior Ranger program there so that made it more fun.  Mom and I didn't care about he china patterns but if you are wondering Martha Washington's is the one we liked best (simple, blue and white).  It's changed a lot over the years because when Teddy Roosevelt was president his kids ran everywhere and business was hard to conduct so after him they built an office west wing so the family could have more privacy.

Make sure you make reservations if you want the inside tour.