State Capitols Challenge

Along the way, I've had the pleasure of seeing many state capitols.  I saw a bunch in the south east but didn't really bother with taking pictures of them and many capitols were kind of out of the way from my driving route.  That was until I arrived in Texas and stayed with my good friend Nathan.  Now, Nathan has amassed a nice collection of pictures with him standing in front of many state capitols.  With both of us being somewhat competitive by nature, I felt the need to have a new goal on this trip and that was to snap pictures of every capitol of each state I pass through from here on out.  I believe in order to be in the lead, I would have to get a picture in front of every capitol from Texas on.  I missed Springfield, Illinois....


Meet and Greets w/ State Workers
I started out trying to take the time to go into the capitols and talk with staffers, legislators and lobbyist and get a feel for the issues and what life was like during session for those workers....It's much the same as in Virginia with the fast pace environment, comb-overs, and stoic settings.  Basically, I would just pick a random office, walk in, and start striking up conversation with a staffer and a legislator if they happened to be in.  It was kind of neat actually.  The first one I tried in Texas however, although I crossed my fingers hoping for a member of my party, turned out to be of the opposite party but that actually made things more interesting; in Colorado I talked with the Speaker's staff, I met the brother of a Representative in New Mexico, in Oregon I made one of the state senators take a picture for me(he couldn't figure out how to work my camera), and in West Virginia I bumped into a Senator while taking a picture of the chamber whom I talked with for about 10 minutes and said the West Virginia people are THE most hospitable people in the US (while I claimed it to be New Mexico and Alabama).

Aside from the picture taking goal, just being able to converse with legislators and staffers from other states has been a neat experience all in itself.  Thank's Nathan for the inspiration :-)