Pres. HW Bush Lies in State at the Capitol

On Monday, December 3rd, Kent and I had the rare opportunity to go to the Capitol building in Washington, DC, to pay our respects to Pres. HW Bush, who was lying in State, after passing away on November 30th. The last time there was a former US President lying in state was twelve years ago, so it seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

I did some research and found out that the viewing was open 24 hours a day, so Kent and I headed to DC at around 9:30pm and arrived about an hour later. We found a place to park on a side street and headed towards the Capitol building.

I was glad to see that even at 10:30pm the line was pretty long to get in. We waited about an hour, but the weather wasn't too cold and it wasn't raining or snowing.

It was great to see young people waiting in line, as well as different ethnicities--it wasn't just all old white people like us. After all, he was president 26 years ago. Some people had even brought their young children, in spite of it being late at night. Below is what the line looked like once we got inside the Capitol building.

 The coffin was placed in the rotunda of the Capitol, and once we got into that room there were no photographs allowed. We were allowed to stay as long as we liked, but we only stayed about five to seven minutes. Below is the program that they handed to us as we entered the rotunda.

We had a bit of trouble finding our car after we left the Capitol. When we parked we were in a hurry and didn't take the time to notice what street we were on, but we eventually found the car and were on our way back to Stafford shortly after midnight.
December is a very busy time for me, but I'm glad we made the sacrifice to go pay our respects to a very decent and honorable public servant.