The Capital (4 of 4)

As we headed to the Capital, we stopped off at the Vietnam Memorial. This circular-designed memorial has full relief bronze sculptures depicting scenes from daily life during the war.  The 5,822 names of our State's dead and missing are engraved into 22 shiny black granite panels.

The Firefighters Memorial is a tribute to over 1,000 firefighters who have died in the line of duty since we became a state in 1850.

Our state capital, where our government leaders work and laws are passed.

The state seal is very interesting. Do you know what each piece signifies?

The seal features:
- the Roman goddess Minerva (Athena in Greek) the goddess of wisdom and war; she was known to be conceived to be an adult and did not go through childhood; like our State we did not go through the growing pains to be an official State; it was like we skipped childhood and became a state much faster then the other states;
- the state grizzly bear (state animal) feeding on grape vines representing our wine production;
- a sheaf of grain representing agriculture;
- a miner representing the Gold Rush and the mining industry;
- sailing ships representing our economic power.
- "Eureka" means "I have found it!" is our state motto.

The Senate Chambers

The decor on the ceiling were painted by famous artists but they were not able to 'sign' their work so instead they created an 'oddity' that would stand out from the rest.

Can you find the 'oddity'?

The Assembly Chambers

The art decor behind our tour guide has a discrepancy also.

Do you see it? I was the first one to find it in our group!

This great grizzly below is from former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

He saw it at a ski lodge and bought it on the spot to have in his office. It's named "Mike".

The 4th grade class with Mrs. Hinton and our tour guide from PACE travel, Mr. Rob.

I have to comment on our tour guide, Mr. Rob. He is from PACE Travel which specializes in custom student group travel with a Christian slant. This is what I wrote to PACE Travel, "He was extremely attentive to the kids and parents making sure we were traveling well and accommodated our suggested requests such as to move the visit to Capitol to the end of the day instead of in the morning so we wouldn't have to rush through the Capital to get to our next destination.  He made a point of remembering each of the students' names and took an opportunity to get to know each of us parents individually. He had a great rapport with the kids giving them sticker rewards as he reviewed what they had just learned from place to place. He was also extremely knowledgeable of all the places that we visited. He had many stories and factual information about each destination. He was prompt, never kept us waiting and the bus was always ready for us to board once we were done with one location. Lastly, you can tell he loved the Lord and wanted the kids to see God in everything whether it was to point out how God and His Word relates to all that we heard and saw or pointing out a character in a painting in a museum who had followed God's teachings or when he was praying for safe travels whenever we headed to another location."

I have never traveled with a tour guide (and I have been with many) that prayed every morning  before we headed to our next destination and who genuinely cared about the students and wanted to get to know us as parents. Very refreshing! It made the trip most memorable!