Well, it happened: The federal government has partially shut down, leaving 800,000 people without pay, the Smithsonians closed, the monuments on the National Mall barricaded and the panda cam offline.

While you won’t be able to walk up to the Washington Monument (see: the syndrome that bears its name), it will still be illuminated at night, according to National Park Service spokeswoman Carol Johnson. (Johnson herself is being furloughed.) This also applies to the other shuttered monuments.

The lights on the Washington Monument’s scaffolding were first switched on in July because, as National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis said at the time, they want it to “look attractive” for the next year during construction. Indeed, it will be nice to have something attractive to look at while a whole lot of ugliness goes on in Congress.