Our Final Full Day of Youth Tour

Some of the Youth Tour students were bold enough to wake up around 3:30am to run with Senator Chuck Grassley! It was a great experience for all that went! How many people can say they ran with Senator Chuck Grassley at 4am in the morning!

Many simply headed back to the hotel and caught some Zzz's until the 6am wake up call. Then we headed to capital hill to take pictures of the students in their nice dress clothes before they met with each of their district's representatives. They all got to speak to representatives like David Young, Rod Blum, David Loebsack, and Steve King. After that Senator Grassley's interns gave us a tour of the capital, and explained a lot of the history behind all of the rooms, and statues within this building. Then we all met back on the capital steps to meet with Senator Grassley and Senator Ernst.

After this was all done we gave them free time to go eat lunch, and to explore the capital some more as well as some of the surrounding buildings like the Library of Congress. Some even got library cards from the Library of Congress! We then boarded the bus for our final museum, the Newseum. We got to watch a 4-D movie and see some of the major publications from the media, as well as the spire from one of the twin towers and much more.

By this time the kids were all tired from being on the capital steps all day and wandering a museum for a few hours, but somehow they all found the energy to go to the "All-States Farewell Dinner and Dance" at our hotel. Afterwards they spent the rest of the evening bonding in the hallway planning their next Youth Tour Reunion till room checks where the Chaperones metaphorically had to force them into their rooms to go to bed because they did not want this trip to end.

By Alec DeVries (Youth Tour Intern/Alumni)