Worldcon—Supreme Court, Capitol, and Washington Monument

As I mentioned before, my itinerary for Washington, D.C. was a little different. One of the top two sites I wanted to visit was the Library of Congress. But the top site I wanted to visit was the Supreme Court of the United States!

If you don’t know why this third branch of government has been so important in the past few years, and what is going to happen in the next few months, maybe you should watch some news.

To get some perspective on how large the statues up front are, notice the black railing in back of one. It is waist height. That’s right, they are much bigger than life size.

Here is the statue on the right, looking at the court.

I know there is a lot of symbolism here, but I don’t know how to interpret it.

The one on the left also has a mini-statue.

I wasn’t there at a time when I could get in, but a friend who does tours says the inner chamber looks like a church, complete with wooden pews.

Here are the bronze doors at the front of the Supreme Court.

I was surprised the Supreme Court was across the street from the Capitol, where Congress meets. The back of it faces the Supreme Court.

As usual, I’m not satisfied with the typical tourist shot. Here is a forced perspective view of it.

Trying to get a nice angle, I ended up walking around the whole building. It is gigantic, and I tired myself from the huge walk. I told this to Cass Morris during the Kaffeeklatsch at Worldcon, and she said that on some occasion she decided to just walk up to the Capitol from some other site. She misjudged the distance because she didn’t know how large it was, and ended up doing quite a hike!

                                                          

Now here’s the Washington Monument, across the Tidal Bay on a sunny day.

I visited it on a less sunny day. You know by now I like unusual perspectives. Here it is when I stood three feet away from the base.