4 days of events

Former President George H.W. Bush honored

HOUSTON >> Former President George H.W. Bush will be honored during several public and private events in Houston and Washington before his burial Thursday in Texas.

Four days of events for Bush, who died Friday at age 94, include a state funeral at Washington’s National Cathedral, a private service at his longtime church in Houston and public viewings in both cities. He will be buried next to his wife Barbara and their daughter Robin who died in 1953.

Here are details about the events:

TRANSPORT FROM HOUSTON TO WASHINGTON

Bush’s body will be transported by a motorcade Monday morning from a Houston funeral home to Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base, a Texas Air National Guard base. The casket will be loaded onto a plane during a departure ceremony scheduled to start at 10:30 a.m. CST and flown to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.

Relatives accompanying the casket will include his sons, former President George W. Bush and Neil Bush, along with members of their immediate families. The rest of the Bush family is expected to be at Joint Base Andrews when the body arrives.

Houston will host a public tribute to Bush on Monday night. Mayor Sylvester Turner has urged attendees to wear colorful socks, a nod to the former president’s fondness for sporting loud socks often emblazoned with unusual patterns during public events.

Bush spokesman Jim McGrath tweeted Monday that Bush will be laid to rest wearing gray socks honoring his days as a naval aviator.

STATE FUNERAL IN WASHINGTON

In Washington, Bush will lie in state in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol from Monday at 7:30 p.m. EST until Wednesday at 8:45 a.m. EST. His casket will be transported by motorcade Wednesday morning to the National Cathedral, where a state funeral will be held at 11 a.m. EST. President Donald Trump, who ordered federal offices closed on Wednesday for a national day of mourning, is to attend with first lady Melania Trump.

RETURN TO HOUSTON

Following the service at the National Cathedral, Bush will be flown to Houston on Wednesday with a scheduled arrival of around 4:30 p.m. CST. His body will be transported by motorcade to St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, where he and his wife regularly worshipped. A public viewing of Bush’s casket will be held at the church from 6:45 p.m. CST on Wednesday until 6 a.m. CST on Thursday.

On Thursday, a private funeral service with about 1,200 invited guests will be held at the church starting at 10 a.m. CST. After the hour-long service, a motorcade will transport Bush’s casket to a train station north of Houston, near the international airport named after Bush.

A ceremony will be held at the train station as Bush’s casket is loaded onto a Union Pacific train. The train will take about 2½ hours to travel roughly 70 miles to the city of College Station, home to Bush’s presidential library at Texas A&M University.

The locomotive has been painted the colors of the Air Force One plane used during Bush’s presidency and bears the number “4141” in honor of the 41st president. The casket will be in a car with Plexiglas windows to allow people to see it during the trip, according to family spokesman Jim McGrath.

BURIAL IN COLLEGE STATION

The train is scheduled to arrive in College Station on Thursday around 3:45 p.m. CST. Bush’s casket will then be transported by motorcade to the presidential library, where he will be buried at the gated family plot near his wife and their daughter Robin, who died of leukemia at age 3. Barbara Bush died on April 17 at their Houston home. The couple was married for 73 years , longer than any other U.S. presidential couple.

Ceremonies at the presidential library will include a missing man formation flyover. The casket will then be rolled along a path through woods, over a bridge and over a creek for burial during a private graveside service with Bush’s family.

ELIZABETH CONLEY — HOUSTON CHRONICLE VIA AP Brian Blake, a former director of communications at the George H.W. Bush Library and Museum, pauses in front of a statue of the former president at the College Station landmark on Saturday. “I need to be here,” Blake said, who worked from 1997-2009 at the library. “He and Barbara were the most amazingly gracious people on the planet. I never felt like I was working for them, just always working with them.” Bush, who died late Friday at his Houston home at age 94, is to be honored with a funeral service in the nation’s capital on Wednesday, followed by burial Thursday at his presidential library in Texas.

KIICHIRO SATO — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Officials gather outside the George H. Lewis Funeral Home as they prepare for a departure ceremony for the state funeral for former President George H.W. Bush, Monday in Houston.

DAVID J. PHILLIP — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Tiffany Utterson, right, and her children, from left to right, Ella, 11, Ian, 10 and Owen, 8, place a wreath outside the gated community entrance to the home of George H.W. Bush Sunday in Houston.