Two apples and a chocolate bar

On Tuesday morning we walked over to the Longworth House Office Building to see our representative (actually his staff) Jim McDermott for our tour. On the way in we had the expected security check – everything metal into the pan, purse through the X-ray machine, etc. – and on to his office.

From there we headed (through the tunnel) to the Cannon Office Building (another security check even though we had just come from the interior of the Longworth) and then (through another tunnel) to the Capitol Building (yet another . . . ). After a brief look around the Rotunda, we headed for the Senate chamber (actually the visitors' gallery) and of course another security check, even though it was impossible for us to have just come in from outside the building. Here it was discovered that Clara had (gasp!) food in her purse! Horrors! Massive Security Threat! The guard stated that he would have to confiscate the "Two apples and a chocolate bar" she had put in there against the possibility that we might continue touring through lunch.

Since we were still going to the House chamber, we still had security checks to face. I nearly wore out my pants pockets digging all of the stuff out of them and then putting it all back in – camera, cell phone, keys (which they had to keep in check since they had a remote device on the key-chain), coins . . . good grief! Oh, and there they discovered that I had a spare battery for my camera – can't carry that into chambers, might set off something with it – what would I set off, they'd examined or put in a check box everything else I was carrying.

To say that we thought they were overdoing this security check business has to be just about as much of an understatement as all of their over-the-top security measures . . .

On our tour on Tuesday we passed by the entrance to Blair House and chuckled at the two armed guards standing sentry duty at the gate. Later on the tour we got a brief glimpse of the White House from a distance (my camera has a forty-times zoom that was extended all the way for this shot so we were quite a ways away!!)

During all of our walks around the Capital and down the Mall, the slap-dash cobbling together of security barriers and steel-plate blockades was absolutely astounding and appalling! The entire Capital looked like Fred Flintstone had been given the job of making sure no one could easily walk or drive anywhere in the whole area! If in fact we need this much security we could at least do a smoother job of installing it!