Hello friends! We're excited and busy preparing for the upcoming Tour Season! We're so thankful to have you all on the team and we want to give you as many tools as possible to help you shine as an EPL. Over the last couple of years, we've had a number of groups go to some new and exciting places and we didn't have the bandwidth here in the office to put information about those attractions for you in the Manual. Thank you to those of you who were assigned to those attractions and had to do the research on your own. We're so grateful for your willingness to gather this information to share with your group. So one of our goals this year is to fill some of those gaps in our EPL Manual. Two of the more popular programs over the last couple of years, that haven't been added to our manual yet, are the Creation Museum/Ark/Cincinnati program and programs that included Yosemite. If you have any information that you've accumulated on those attractions/programs that you'd like to share with us, we would love to collect it, organize it, and place it in the EPL manual for future EPLs to benefit from your work. If you also happen to have and can include the sources you used, such as the web links, books, or articles, for your research, that would be wonderful, but please don't feel the need to go and refind your sources. Please send anything you think would be helpful to place in the EPL manual to nolan@acts-tours.com by this Friday (2/10). Thank you again for being on our team and for all of the work you do in representing ACTS and our Savior on the road!!

You may have heard, but we were asked by Joseph that if we took pictures or video at the museum that had any people in them that we not most them on social media to protect those people. If you took pictures / video without people he encouraged us to spread the news about them on social media. Thanks for a great weekend, we're praying for you!!

As many of you know, Ford’s Theatre is requiring masks to enter the building. They are now charging $1.00 for a mask so be sure to remind your group to bring a mask with them. Thank you for your patience as we navigate the constantly changing landscape. Ford’s is still requiring a mask but DIDN’T charge $1.00 to take one of theirs. Don‘t panic if not everyone has a mask. Still remind them to bring their own.

Please note that the intersection of 10th street NW and F street, which is the intersection at the top of the street by Ford's Theatre, is closed for utility work and will be inaccessible to vehicles through April 2nd. The parking garage next to Ford's will still be open and vehicles will be traveling North and South on 10th street going to the garage. Pay careful attention to crossing the street because traffic will be going in both directions in between Ford's and the Petersen House.

Just an FYI, there's a new company operating the parking at Arlington. The new company is not using the transponders that we've been using over the last few years with the Benton coaches. Since there's no one in the booth now to accept checks, we need to ask you to use your personal credit or debit card and we'll reimburse you. You can submit it right away if you need to be reimbursed right away or you can submit it with your trip box. I'm sorry that there's not a better way to do this at this time. If this will be a problem for you please let me know! As an additional note, your driver will need to pull up so that his/her window is level with the machine to put the card in or the sensor won't recognize that there is a coach there and it won't accept your card.

- Five Guys at L’enfant is permanently closed, but there are more options open now than what we had last Spring there - Jazz Cafe at American History Museum is open. That‘s the small cafe by the Constitution exit not the cafeteria in the basement, it was packed the day I was there. - There is now a Chipotle where Cozi used to be by Fords theatre.

So apparently I had the clip position incorrect in my previous post. The top of the clip should curve around and be on the outside. I'm sorry for making this more confusing. Hopefully, this will help to keep the badges on their clips.

I neglected to put in my email to each of you that the EPL CEU tasks need to be completed by April 1, 2022. I'm sorry if I caused any panic as you tried to finish everything today. I also wanted to remind you that we need to know that you've read each post that comes to you in the Professional Development forum. Simply click on the heart and we'll know you've read it. You can of course comment if you want. This is only true in the Professional Development forum, you don't need to reply in any way in the other forums, except when we specifically ask you to, or you want to comment. Thanks!!

American Revolution Museum – Film times: 20 after the hour or 10 to the hour - based on arrival.

National Constitution Center - Film is now on the quarter hour. Café is still closed.

Library of Congress – you will not be able to enter the building as an entire group OR gather as a group inside the LOC. We are able to secure tickets in batches of 6. You need to enter in groups of 6; stay in groups of 6 inside; regroup as a large group OUTSIDE. Please clearly communicate to your group not to re-group or congregate in groups larger than 6 while inside the building. It is VERY important to follow these rules until the restrictions are lifted. We want to leave a good impression and continue to access these sites. If we appear to be ignoring these restrictions, it will result in cancelled tickets for future groups.

Mount Vernon – new Orientation Center film; we encourage you to show We Fight To Be Free (the former movie) on the coach if you have it. If you don’t and wish to purchase, you can find it on Amazon.

Pentagon City Mall – There is a non-student friendly lingerie store near the entrance to the escalator to the food court – (where Brookstone used to be). Please led your group to the escalator and position yourself (and some chaperones if possible) to redirect attention. Set your meeting location on the food court level rather on the main level. Then head out quickly – possibly positioning chaperones up on the main level to divert attention.

My son-in-law, Caleb has his cumulative CFA test today to be a certified financial advisor. It’s an 8 hour test that most people fail the first time they take it. On top of that, Holly is due, with our first grandchild (woot woot!!), on August 2. All of our children came 2 or 3 weeks early so it’s possible that Holly could go into labor today and Caleb wouldn’t know about it because he can’t take a phone call nor can he be interrupted during the test. Pray that Caleb passes and that our grandchild waits a little longer to join us! Thanks!!!

Right now when you go through security at Independence Hall you will need to talk to a ranger to give them the size of your group and get the tour times that they will put in for the Hall. They let me save my group's spot in line as they saw Congress hall and waited under the arch out of the rain. They are currently taking 9 people every 15 minutes into the Hall and the tour is about 20 minutes. They don't really want you to stay inside the secured area if you aren't waiting to go into one of the buildings, they're trying to limit how many people are in that area at any given time. The size of my group meant we were in 3 smaller groups to go into the Hall so as they came out (having already done Congress Hall) I took each group down to the 2nd Bank Portrait Gallery (allows 20 people at a time) and then to Carpenter's Hall (allows 10 people at a time). There is also a restroom in the 2nd Bank. I just told the second two groups to exit out of the secure area and I will meet them on the other side of the street and take them to their next stop. We had already done the Bell, but that would be where I would send them next if they still need to do that. The Bell has a VERY slow-moving line, if the line is all the way back to the Bell it will likely take at least an hour to get through security. If you don't have enough time, there is a window that you can look through and see it, when I was there there was a line for this as well, but it moved pretty quickly. We joked that it was amazing how big the building looked on the outside but how few people can now fit inside, yet the souvenir store we went to looked really small but our whole group fit inside, it must have been Covid magic. :o)

Monticello is still only allowing clear bags up to the house. All other bags must remain on the coach or rent a locker.