There’s something about Washington, DC. Every time I come here, I feel slightly better about the future of our country. I think it has to do with how open everything seems. Yesterday, I walked through the Department of Health and Human Services, and saw a number of recognizable people in government. Today, while walking to a tour, we passed the Departments of the Treasury, Agriculture, and Commerce, the White House, and the Old Executive Building.
Maybe it’s me, and maybe it’s cliche, but seeing all of those places, and pointing them out to my kids, made government seem more real. It made it seem more personal. We don’t have a government where all the officials work in a walled castle, removed from the rest of us. You can walk right up to the buildings. You can see the people. It’s real.
We were cutting across the mall near the Washington monument, and I told my daughter to run to the top of the hill and see what was there. She excitedly called for her brothers to come up and see, too. I caught a picture:
That’s got to be worth at least a thousand words.
