On one of our lunch breaks in Capitol City last month, a bunch of us (almost entirely fish folks) decided to try the bagel place. Mainly because it was so close. Cut across the Supreme Court lawn, and across the intersection, and you're there. In what used to be a gas station.

Lots of variety in the menu (darn hard to find anything with a plain bagel), with the standard cappuccino choices.

But that's not the point.

Point is, we were done in no time, and three of us found ourselves outside our building with a half-hour to kill before the afternoon session.

So we went to the Capitol.

Past Esther's statue and then up two long flights of stone stairs. Dodging the mass of high school students sitting there, clearly finishing their tour and waiting for their bus. Asked one kid, and they were from the town east of Central City.

And then, it was into the Capitol itself.

First thing you see in the rotunda is the statue of Chief Washakie. And a little sign that asks visitors to please check in.

I presume with the highway patrolman sitting in the booth in the corner. Whose patrolcar sits uselessly out front of the building all day long.

But check in we didn't. Just strolled past his desk, staring up at the painted dome ceiling four or five stories up, and headed up the stone steps to the second floor. Which was lots of small meeting rooms, all empty (lunch hour, you know), and each with a schedule by the door letting you know which committee would be using each room when.

Warm, carved wood everywhere you looked.

Otherwise, not much on the second floor.

So, into the doorways in the side walls, and up the wooden stairs to the third floor. Still fun to look up at the paintings in the dome, but I can't for the life of me remember what they were of. Do remember really wishing I hadn't left the camera in the truck.

More meeting rooms. But this level was alive. People in suits standing in the halls or doorways, in pairs or threes, discussing heavy matters of the State. Politely stepping aside for us suitless, tieless gents as we worked our way either east or west (my bearings were already lost).

Through a grand wood doorway, down a few steps, past a side room with a half-dozen legislators closing up their meeting, and then we were there. In the gallery, overlooking one of the legislative chambers. Empty except for a page rearranging papers on the President's desk across the way.

Had a fun time picking out the desks of legislators we knew. Almost each and every one of them with a small laptop screen glowing away on it. One of the fish guys immediately spotted Charlie's desk, on the left side. A mass of cluttered papers filling the right half the desk, piled up and then continuing onto the frontispiece, and spilling all across it.

Most other desks were neat and organized. A few with flowers. But having known Charlie when he worked in the legislator's town, the fish guy was totally unsurprised at the condition of his desk.

Then it was back through the spattering of suits, around the open oval below the dome, and through the wood doorway on the other side. And into the gallery of the other legislative branch.

Which looked almost exactly like the other gallery, just the names were different. And this branch was also empty, but had a major meeting continuing through the lunch hour, the long room up by the gallery filled to overflowing with suits.

A brief look at the display of dozens of samples of petroleum products by the chamber doorway (lest any legislator forget that industry's importance to the state, I guess), and a check to find the stairways heading farther up were roped off, and we headed back down.

Passed the highway patrolman and Chief Washakie again, and turned north to exit. Walking out over the legislators' private parking garage and towards the new state office building. From there, we circled around to check out the ventilator shafts by the parking garage, and then continued around the lawn on the east side.

Unaccosted the entire time. With me packing my black bag (which the wife and I call my purse, but other folks would call a planner) in hand all the way.

Slip a few packages of C-4 inside of it, leave it in a gallery, and we could have wreaked havoc on our state's government.

A fact we chuckled about as we headed back to our training. Not cynically, nor maliciously. But because it feels so damn good to live in a place where life is still simple, and folks take you as you come.

Even in the Capitol.