The Grand Poobah of all Libraries

McKinsey loves libraries. She really loves them. Her fallback job is librarian. So it is only natural that while in DC, we would go visit the Library of Congress, the world's largest library, containing over 32 million catalogued books.



This isn't the Library of Congress (I'm going to call it the LOC from now on), its the Supreme Court, which is right next door to the LOC. Just thought I'd throw that in there.

Here's the LOC! As you can see, it is a very grand building. Definitely trying to make a statement.

A fountain depicting the Roman god Neptune and his son Triton stand guard at the front of the building.

"Library of Congress" in gold-leaf lettering greets you as you enter the Great Hall.

Just an example of the ornate quality of the LOC. As I said earlier, the early Americans wanted to use this building to make a statement asserting the United States intelligence and sophistication.

More ornateness.
When I said that Kinsey loved libraries, I meant that she loved books, not the library building's architectural details. So we were both pretty bummed when we learned that we had to register to get into the main reading room, the one you see in movies like National Treasure. We plan on getting in there sometime before we leave DC. Here's a picture looking through the door into the reading room. Apparently they had some window damage from a storm, which accounts for the scaffolding and tarp.

Kinsey and I always multitask on our tourist excursions, so we dropped in on the Botanical Gardens while we were in the area.

As you can see, there is a lot of foliage in there. Although Kinsey and I both agreed that the botanical gardens at Como Zoo in St. Paul were better. Score one for Minnesota.

Some cute little orchids growing on a tree. I must say, everything was well labeled. It was pretty steamy in the gardens so Kinsey and I didn't stick around for very long.