On Monday The Capitol Christmas Tree Stops In Dallas On Its Journey From One Washington To The Other One

On the left you are looking at people standing around in the northeast corner of my old home state of Washington, watching the process by which an 88 foot tall Engelmann spruce tree gets prepared to begin its more than 5,000 mile journey from Washington to Washington, D.C., where it will serve as the Official 2013 U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree.

I did not know of this magnificent event until informed about it, this morning, by Fort Worth's renowned horticulturist, Ms. CatsPaw, pointing me to the well made Capitol Christmas Tree website which was obviously not made by the same people who made the dysfunctional Obamacare website.

On the Capitol Christmas Tree website I learned that Washington is proud to share its good nature by sending a tree from the Colville National Forest to the other Washington.

The People's Tree's journey to D.C. began on November 1 in Newport, Washington, where it stayed several days before taking a short journey to Colville, Washington. The next several days the Capitol Christmas Tree traveled all over Washington, to Spokane, Republic, Wenatchee, Yakima, and then over the Cascade Mountains to Western Washington to Everett, Olympia, Vancouver and then back east over the mountains to Kennewick before finally leaving Washington and arriving in Mountain Home, Idaho on the 10th.

From Idaho on the Capitol Christmas Tree has not lingered long in any one state. You can see all the Capitol Christmas Tree stops on the map below...

On its circuitous route to the other Washington the Capitol Christmas Tree makes two Texas stops.

Today, November 16 the Capitol Christmas Tree is in Amarillo at the downtown library for a holiday celebration with Park and Recreation mascots, serving up cookies and cider along with Santa Claus.

Then on November 18 the Capitol Christmas Tree bypasses Fort Worth to get to Dallas to the American Airlines Center where the tree will participate in pre-game hoopla with the Dallas Mavericks Mascots.

Seven days after leaving Dallas the Capitol Christmas Tree arrives at the Capitol where, in early December, there will be a tree lighting ceremony with the notorious Speaker of the House, John Boehner leading the lighting.

I do not know if throngs of Capitol Christmas Tree aficionados have been lining up to cheer on the passing tree like what happened when the Olympic Torch made its way across America to do its lighting duty at the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics. I remember joining the multitude doing so, somewhere between Seattle and Tacoma, and feeling a bit ridiculous, and yet strangely caught up in the event, as that torch passed by to the cheers of the onlookers.