WASHINGTON -- Dozens of national parks were expected to fully reopen, agency workers were returning to their offices and federal courts resumed their normal dockets, as the government slowly clicked back into gear a day after the longest shutdown in history came to an end.

Federal employees are expecting to see paychecks again as early as Thursday after six weeks in limbo with Democrats and Republicans at loggerheads over spending priorities.

Still, the full reopening of the government will take time. While workers returned to many agency offices to confront piles of undone tasks, some federal functions were expected to take longer to come back online, as a few hopeful museumgoers discovered when they were met with "closed" signs in Washington, D.C.

The Smithsonian said three of its mus

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