The Decompression of a Boomer

David and I stole away from St. Luke’s hospital in Boise for a couple of hours to grab lunch downtown, and visit the Capitol Building. It had just re-opened after a $120 million, 2 1/2-year face-lift. (Hmm, that puts things in perspective. My face-lift would cost pennies in comparison, a good selling point to convince my husband to agree to let me do it – if I present it right: “Some face-lifts cost $120 million whereas mine would only be …”)

Anyway, We were walking toward the Capitol building and I shot a photo …

… while freezing my butt off, because a cold front had moved in and Boise felt just like … Idaho Falls. And I hadn’t brought my winter coat. Stupid! What was I thinking? Spring?

So we walked really fast. Moments later we were inside…

and up on the third floor, looking down…

I have to say, I was impressed! I don’t recall ever having visited a State Capitol building before, but this was about as magnificent as I could imagine any Capitol building to be.

It made me proud to be an Idahoan. Here we have the Great Seal of Idaho:

And the Idaho State Song, which goes like this:

“And here we have Idaho, winning her way to fame. La-la-la-la-la- LA-LA-aaaa, la-la-la … la-la … grain(?)”

Okay, so I only remember the first line. Oh well, that’s predictable, seeing as I learned it in High School.

Here we are overlooking the Senate Gallery:

They had been in session that morning and were now in committee or something. We passed a few of our state reps and senators in the hallways, and seeing them made me feel under-dressed. But then, I’m just an ordinary Idaho citizen.

Although, touring the Capitol building, checking out the House and Senate Galleries, passing by the Governor’s office, hanging out on those balconies where you could gaze up at that magnificent rotunda, made me want to go into politics. For about 10 seconds.

Here we are on the first floor looking up …

at the Capitol’s rotunda – with the daylight illuminating the high columns of windows.

I pointed my camera straight up over my head to photograph the ceiling of the rotunda:

And got myself all dizzy and nearly stumbled over backwards. It would have been … embarrassing! I could have fallen on top of somebody, because other visitors, including my husband, were lying on their backs on that floor, three stories below the rotunda, taking photos.

So if you’re in Boise, and have a couple of hours free for lunch and a walk downtown, go visit the Capitol building.

Oh! And see if somewhere in the building you can find the words to our State Song.

Tags: Boise State Capitol Building

This entry was posted on March 16, 2010 at 10:45 pm and is filed under Boise. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.