Shutdown Has Sightseers in D.C. Seeing Red : Tourists: Locked doors at monuments and museums are ruining scores of vacations. Few visitors have sympathy for Congress or the President.

The tour bus leaving from the Washington Monument was packed with incredulous out-of-towners as guide Jim Turner turned onto Independence Avenue and headed toward the Smithsonian Institution to describe the sights of the nation’s capital.

The Smithsonian building was closed because of the government shutdown that has left Washington looking like a ghost town while Congress debates a new budget accord. But Turner went on anyway, teasing his passengers with descriptions of the interesting exhibits.

Then he turned toward the crowd mischievously. “Just wanted to tell you what you were missing,” he said.

Though word of the federal government’s shutdown has been circulating since Saturday, thousands of tourists were still finding themselves barred from monuments and museums Sunday--often after having spent hundreds of dollars to get here.

Erich Loew of Binghamton, N.Y., had saved up $500 to bring his wife and son here for the long holiday weekend.

“We are very unhappy that everything is closed,” Loew said. His family is from Stuttgart, Germany, but they are temporarily living in Philadelphia. “We doubt we’ll ever get here again,” he lamented. “After traveling from so far and wanting to see the museums, which are some of the best in the world, it is so disappointing.”

Like other tourists, Loew did not know why “everything is closed.” The family arrived Saturday and headed straight for their 12-year-old son Michael’s top pick on the sightseeing list: the National Air and Space Museum.

“They told us it was closed Saturday so we went again today, and it’s still closed,” Loew said, shaking his head. “What’s the reason for it?” he asked.

Anne Sander, a tourist from Denmark, also was confused by the shutdown. “I was so shocked to see that everything was closed,” she said. “I saved up money to come here, and I really wanted to see all the monuments.”

If the budget crisis isn’t settled, beginning Tuesday millions more will be locked out of federal buildings here and in other cities and some of the 2.4 million government employees will be sent home if they are not deemed “essential” to operations.

Despite the sunny and unseasonably warm day here Sunday, tourists jammed into crowded tour buses and packed into rental cars to take in from afar the places they could not visit, such as the White House.

Few were sympathetic to Congress’ seeming inability to put the nation’s fiscal house in order. “The politics here . . . are no different from our family setting aside money to either spend on food or on this trip,” said Harold Baker of Columbus, Ohio.

“They should handle the budget in the same way” and settle things, Baker declared.

New Yorker Jerry Rubino agreed. “When it starts affecting you and your family and your leisure pursuits, you start to get angry,” Rubino said.

“Seeing a national monument is a right, not a privilege,” he added. “It sounds to me like both Congress and the President are throwing temper tantrums and taking it out on the public.”

Rubino’s traveling companion, Glenn Bronley, also from New York City, was frustrated by the shutdown. “It’s terrible being a tourist here right now,” he said with a sigh.

Like thousands of other visitors Sunday, Rubino and Bronley scoured their guidebooks for sites that should have been open--including Arlington National Cemetery and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

The city’s handful of accessible attractions were deluged by visitors. “They were rushing us though Mt. Vernon,” said Dean Delille of Boulder, Colo. “We were in line for 30 minutes before we reached the sign that said ‘The Line Starts Here.’ ”

For mother Geri Strugatz, who was traveling with her two young children, the closing of the restroom facilities at area monuments and national parks was the most unbearable aspect of the shutdown. “It makes it difficult to sightsee with little children,” Strugatz said.

As Turner’s tour bus rounded the corner for a front view of the Capitol building, the guide explained routinely that the flag flying over the House side of the building meant that the legislators were currently in session, debating the budget issue.

“I hope they’re getting somewhere,” one of the passengers murmured to a seatmate, “because we can’t ride around in a bus the whole time we’re here.”