We woke up to another rainy day here in Olympia. B worked on her science lesson, here observing the volume of gas created by a chemical reaction:

M has graduated from fried egg sandwiches and is now making scrambled eggs:

Trish and B made stamps to decorate the fable that B wrote for writing class. The moral of the story was “never be afraid to wear mismatched socks”:

Around noon, we drove into Olympia to tour the Washington state captiol. We were excited to compare it to the Nevava stata capitol and Yukon Territorial capitol that we had previously toured. This building is the last domed state capitol built in the US. It also has the largest masonry dome in the US, and has one of the largest collections of Tiffany light fixtures in the world.
Guided tours are given on the hour, and our tour had just the four of us and another couple:




That chandelier above us weighs 10,000 pounds, is large enough to contain a Volkswagen Beetle inside it, and hangs from a 2,000 pound chain. The docent told us that it took weeks to stop swaying after the 2001 earthquake:




The captiol building has a small ballroom:

The unofficial 42 star flag, commissioned to include Washington as the 42nd state. It was never used because flags were only issued annually on the fourth of July, and Idaho became a state that same year on July 3rd as the 43rd state:



View of the main dome:

The House chambers:



Another view of the main dome:

The Senate chambers:

Lots of amazing details here:



Another unofficial 42 star flag:

1930s era staff office:

The exterior doors weigh 4,000 pounds each and are 4 inches thick:


It’s quite the edifice:


We also briefly visited the “Temple of Justice”, where the supreme court works. It was the first building built in the capitol district:

The big chairs:

The law library:





From the capitol, we drove to Lacey where we dropped off Tricia and B at Shipwreck Beads, one of the largest bead stores in the US. Liz would meet them there and bring them home:

M and I bought parts for the truck and RV, as well as stop at Lowes for parts for a project Trish is working on. I think I turned my back for a bit too long:

We then came home and replaced a fuse in the truck, replaced the faulty water heater switch I found a couple days ago, and replaced the anode rod in the RV water heater. Can you tell which one is the old one and which one is new?

Tomorrow we will head North to the Olympic Peninsula. Stay tuned!