Do You Love Pink?

Plain City, Ohio
Pastime Park

This morning we drove over to Columbus to pick up Misty and take a tour of the State Capitol.  There was almost no traffic at all.

The parking garage was under the capitol building, so we didn't have a chance to walk the grounds.  There was a bar that said 6 foot 6 clearance.  I believe the truck is 6 foot 4 inches but when I drove up to the bar, I had Bill get out and make sure we had clearance.  The garage goes down three floors under the building.  I was ducking every time I came to one of those bars.  As we walked over to the elevator, we saw a sign that said not to leave the parking ticket in the vehicle.  Then there was another sign that said you had to pay on the green floor before leaving.  

When we entered the doors to the building we had to go through metal detectors.  Bill was allowed to carry his pocket knife, but was told to keep it in his pocket.  

There are three Sunday tours and we were in time for the first one at noon.  If you didn't want to do the guided tour, you could take a self guided tour.  I can't imagine anyone not doing a guided one when the docents add so much to the tour.  

We were surprised to hear that this area is often rented out for weddings and parties.  

I was happy that this tour was so well done as Misty has never done a capitol tour before.  The architecture is Greek, so a little different than most we've visited.  The marble was imported from Greece and there was a lot of it and pink paint.

The 128 foot dome is inside a cupola.  In the center is a hand painted seal of Ohio.

The Senate has the gallery around the perimeter of the room unlike most capitols which have a balcony.  

The wood is all hand carved pine which has been stained.

Don't you just love all the pink walls?

Here's more of the original color pink walls.  The floors were prettier than in this photo.

The white marble desk in the Representative chamber was carved out of one piece of marble and the room was built around it.

Lincoln gave a speech from the steps of this building in 1859 to about 35 people.

The senate offices were moved to this attached building.

After the docent guided tour, we were allowed to visit the museum.  One thing I didn't mention was how quiet it was, since it was Sunday and no one was working.

The museum was excellent. Not a lot about history as much as telling you the story of the Ohio government.  

There were many interactive machines but I enjoyed balancing the budget.  Did I mention that Ohio is another state that is required to balance the budget by a specific day.



I enjoyed that "game" and I must say I balanced.  

We've visited a lot of Capitols and this one will go down as one of our favorites.  Maybe it's because we shared it with Misty.  




I was a little nervous about the procedure for leaving the underground garage.  We went to the green floor and put the ticket in, followed by the credit card.  Thankfully, I pulled my ticket out when done.  The machine said we had 15 minutes to leave the garage.  As I drove the truck to the exit barricade, I realized you needed the ticket to put in the machine to open the gate.  Good thing, I had retrieved it from the machine.

One of my blog readers suggested we stop in the German Village at Schmidt's.  I have to say it was very tight driving our truck down those narrow streets with cars parked on the sides.  The brick street bounced us around but I was able to park along the street by the restaurant.  

It was a 23 minute wait, but since they have been in business since 1886, we figured it had to be good.

We had time to visit another shop and play around with the camera.

Misty eyed the half pound cream puffs as we walked in.

It was a great day and I think we all enjoyed it.

Bill never quit talking the whole time. 







Turtle Safely........