After a stop in Minneapolis to visit my sister's family, I passed through St Paul and then on down to Madison, for my 8th and 9th state capitals on this trip. I'd been to Madison before, getting a tour of the campus with one of my cousins. This time I went, as you could guess, to the Capitol.
It's on a finger of land between two large lakes -- I imagine that makes traffic rather a mess regularly, and I got caught in some of it. It was a cloudy, misty/rainy day after many of hundreds of miles of sunshine. It was another impressive structure on the outside, shaped like a plus sign, with roads radiating from the inside corners. Not many statues outside, so I wandered in again.
Well, this time, on top of the marvelous architecture again, there was something else to see -- people...gathered under the dome...singing! No, it wasn't a gospel choir, though there was a running theme of overcoming despite oppression. Yes, it was the remnants of the crowds that occupied the capitol earlier in the year. They sang surprisingly well, and it echoed through the building, adding an unusual soundtrack to my visit.
After being able to walk into Lincoln's capitol with no security and seeing almost no one, it was actually heartening to see democracy in action. "Congress shall make no law [...] prohibiting [...] the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
After a stop in Minneapolis to visit my sister's family, I passed through St Paul and then on down to Madison, for my 8th and 9th state capitals on this trip. I'd been to Madison before, getting a tour of the campus with one of my cousins. This time I went, as you could guess, to the Capitol.
It's on a finger of land between two large lakes -- I imagine that makes traffic rather a mess regularly, and I got caught in some of it. It was a cloudy, misty/rainy day after many of hundreds of miles of sunshine. It was another impressive structure on the outside, shaped like a plus sign, with roads radiating from the inside corners. Not many statues outside, so I wandered in again.
Well, this time, on top of the marvelous architecture again, there was something else to see -- people...gathered under the dome...singing! No, it wasn't a gospel choir, though there was a running theme of overcoming despite oppression. Yes, it was the remnants of the crowds that occupied the capitol earlier in the year. They sang surprisingly well, and it echoed through the building, adding an unusual soundtrack to my visit.
After being able to walk into Lincoln's capitol with no security and seeing almost no one, it was actually heartening to see democracy in action. "Congress shall make no law [...] prohibiting [...] the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
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