The Capitol
Eight years of digging and building and almost triple the estimated cost.
The entrance to the new $651 million dollar underground Capitol
Visitor Center. This is the line for the body cavity search
One of two desks where you pick up your sticker that indicates what tour you're on.
Visitors queue up to get their free passes for the guided tour of the Capitol .
After a 15 minute film, you're taken into the Capitol in smaller groups by a guide.
Ike on the left, Kevin Bacon on the right.
Jack Swigert was the Command Module pilot on the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission (Kevin Bacon in the movie).
He ran for Congress after returning to Earth, won the election but lost to cancer before he could take office.
The view up. I shot this with a 16mm circular fisheye lens, but because the digital sensor is smaller than a full 24x36mm
film frame, the edges get truncated and the image becomes equivalent to one taken with a 24mm wide angle lens. This 1.5x
factor works the other way around with a telephoto lens...a 200mm lens on a digital body becomes equivalent to a 300mm lens.
There will be a quiz later.
They had some nice paintings on the walls of the Capitol Rotunda.
Statuary on the west side of the Capitol, near the Reflecting Pool. That's U.S. Grant on the left.
Details on the artillery section.
U.S. flag flying on the east side of the Capitol.
Yet more statues. Freedom atop the Capitol dome, and James Garfield.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, we were swarmed by a flock of Segways.
This was an organized tour, conducted wholly on Segway scooters.
next....an smugly green feel-good guilt-free trip down Skyline Drive