The Capitol Building is Getting Harder to Walk By

When we moved here ten years ago from the Midwest, we immediately started taking walks in our new neighborhood. The most frequent destination was the National Mall and the surrounding well known landmarks and monuments. Probably the building that has been walked by and visited the most is the Capitol building. When I worked at the Library of Congress, I was able to take behind the scene tours of the new visitor center that was being built. I used to take walks over to the Capitol through the underground tunnels on my afternoon breaks. Whenever we have visitors from out of town, we take them to see the structure and the contents within it. We have taken many guided tours there! During the summer months we like to sit on the west steps and listen to the free concerts. I have taken hundreds of photos of the Capitol building in all seasons, times of the day, and various holidays. Since I retired last year, I now take daily walks with my husband and the Capitol is usually our first landmark. Over the last several months it is getting increasingly difficult to walk there. Today we were told by the police if we didn't have business there, we needed to walk around. Oftentimes the streets are blocked off for motarcades and we can't pass through. We may have to start waking in a different direction. It's getting harder and harder to live in DC. But we aren't tourists! We live here! It doesn't seem to make any difference.