WASHINGTON — Most of the chairs were empty.

Some young staff members sat on the side, whispering to each other. A few shuffled in and out of the narrow wooden doors. But of the 100 wooden desks facing the Senate president’s raised platform, only one was filled.

The sole occupant, a tall man in a gray suit, stood up to speak from his desk. He spoke of his state, how the Indian Health Service was failing many Native Americans there, how they needed to fix it. His anecdotes were gripping, but his audience nonexistent.

That didn’t matter to Katie Mills.

That was a senator speaking. He was standing in the United States Senate Chamber. And she was there.

Seated in the second-floor gallery, Mills and her family watched as Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., argued that the Senate should take up a proposed bill to examine the Indian Health Service program. As the senator carried on and circled back to earlier points, Mills leaned over to her mom, Debbi, and said, “This is the coolest thing ever.”

The 13-year-old has been studying politics and following the presidential election like a hawk over the last year. She already has decided that she wants to study law before running for political office.

So rather than sit in her room and scan lists of words to prepare for the Scripps National Spelling Bee, Mills and her family jumped in an Uber and set off on a sightseeing adventure through the nation’s capital Wednesday. They met with West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, toured the U.S. Capitol and visited the Library of Congress.

It was a busy day, but Mills wanted to get in as much as she could.

Hours earlier, she and 284 other competitors had filed into a giant conference hall at the Gaylord National Resort & Conference Center near Washington, D.C., to begin their first test in the national bee. For the first part of the preliminaries round, competitors had to answer 12 spelling questions and 14 vocabulary questions.

Obscure words were the theme of the day. And they weren’t just English words.

Students, ranging from grades first through eighth, were tested on their knowledge of French, German and Norwegian.

Mills, winner of the 2016 Gazette-Mail Regional Spelling Bee, had to spell words like geminate, allogamy and nynorsk.

And then came the vocabulary section.

Define turophile. A lover of cheese. What does decorous mean? Ornamental. And how about mendacious? Prone to lying.

Parents were invited to take the hour-long test at the same time as their students.

Mills said she’s positive she missed a few. But her mom, Debbi, missed way more.

A speller’s advancement depends on their performance on the written test combined with their performance in two oral spelling rounds that will be held Thursday.

Beginning at 8 a.m. Mills will have to wait around for most of the day to spell two words on the bee’s main stage. The morning round will be televised on ESPN 3 and the afternoon round will be shown on ESPN 2.

Mills said the bee’s giant, light-up stage reminded her of a debate stage.

Since last August, Mills has been checking the presidential polls almost daily. She took a constitutional law class with her home-school co-op. She tried to watch as many debates as she could. She wrote an essay explaining what would happen in a contested convention.

It’s fitting that the eighth-grader, who worked for years to try to qualify for the national bee, would finally get to compete in her last qualifying year. And that her love for government also would blossom the same year she earned a trip to the nation’s capital.

During her tour of the U.S. Capitol she visited the old Supreme Court chambers. She tapped her foot on the Star Compass, which marks the center of the city. She even walked past Kentucky Senator and former presidential candidate Rand Paul.

A member of Capito’s staff led Mills and her family on a tour. The Mills family visited Capito’s office in the Russell Senate Office Building before beginning the tour. Capito took photos with the family, shared her personal stories of spelling bee failures and revealed a word that gave her a hard time on this weekend’s crossword puzzle. Mills could spell the word right.

Mills was quiet for most of the visit, but she walked out of Capito’s office smiling. If she was worried about how she did on that morning’s test, she didn’t show it.

The hardest part — the months of taking quiz after quiz, the pressure of the county and regional bee — were behind her. By this point, Mills said she knows what she knows. She’s not going to waste her trip cramming to learn to a few more words.

She’s in D.C. She’s going to enjoy it.