My Capitol Building

We lived on Capitol Hill for thirteen years and recently moved to northern Virginia. We still go in to town at least once a week to visit our old neighborhood. I worked at the Library of Congress for ten years. Because of the department I worked in, I was able to see the Capitol visitor center being built, and walked through it twice behind the scenes before it opened to the public. In the afternoon I would oftentimes walk through the underground tunnels from the Library to the Capitol just to see the crowds, or even visit the post office. We visited the Capitol when I was about six years old, and many times after that for high school trips and family vacations. The Capitol is probably the one building I have more photos of than any other. We saw two presidents lie in state under the rotunda, took our friends and relatives there for the Capitol tours, watched so many protests, saw it in all seasons, watched the Christmas tree get put up, saw the kids sledding down the hill in winter, watched three inaugurations, walked by it every day on our morning walks; saw the dome being restored; listened to the army band concerts on the steps in the summer, viewed it from the top floor of the library, watched the marathon runners fly past it, created my first Christmas card from DC with its image, watched the Fourth of July fireworks and cannons by the reflecting pond, watched all the events on the mall with the Capitol in the backdrop - the library book festival, the Pope, and any one else of significance, attended many senate hearings, saw it at night and during the day, rain, sun and snow. I have a lot of memories of this place. Yesterday I spent the day looking at a lot of the photos I had taken of this beautiful building filled with history - the major I had declared when I started college all those years ago. It’s an imposing and majestic place. We were just there on Monday of this week for a morning walk and more photos. I need to post the images on my Pinterest page because they mean a lot to me and I can’t fit them all on this blog. The Capitol will never look the same.