January 20th, 2009 - Washington D.C.
WE WERE THERE!
7 am- We've made to the city relatively easily on the Metro - looking down the street we see several hundred people headed in the same direction as us!
WE WERE THERE!
7 am- We've made to the city relatively easily on the Metro - looking down the street we see several hundred people headed in the same direction as us!
It seems like everyone is looking for someplace they can't find...the yellow gate, the silver gate, the Mall, or the purple gate, like us. Why is this large bus parked across the intersection? Could the fabled purple gate be beyond it? Why are there no signs? Police officers? At one point word gets passed back through the crowd that we MUST move back, because the fabled gate cannot physically be opened due to the crowd pushing up against it. (This turned out to be purely rumor.) After an hour at a stand-still here, a group of police officers come through and direct everyone with purple tickets (yes! that's us!) down and around the block, where we reportedly will be "merged" back into the "line" for the purple gate.
So we walked with the rest of the mob around the corner - there was no line. Perhaps some people standing against a fence since 4 am FELT they had begun a nice line...but this had clearly deteriorated throughout the morning since there were no ropes, barriers, signs, etc to guide the line-forming. And when a mob of hundreds of people (including us) rounded the corner (per the direction of police, I might add) the only choice was to wiggle toward the gate. We seemed to be good wigglers, because soon we were on the other side of the first "gate," looking out at the swarm of people waiting. A few thousand of these people wouldn't ever get through the gate, even though they had a ticket for the inauguration! I guess it pays to be a little bit pushy at times!
Finally, the purple gate...and room to walk!
We settled into our standing-room only space on the Capitol grounds. On the far right of this picture you can see the red-curtained arch where all the action happened. You can see Obama through the trees, right? On the far left of the picture you can see the edge of the Jumbotron that helped us view the ceremony. Of course, I was holding the camera over my head in this picture and at 5'4" even the Jumbotron was hard to see!
Here we are, celebrating a new era of HOPE!
Sha-nah-nah-nah, sha-nah-nah-nah, hey, hey, hey - GOODBYE!
Then across the street to Congressman Walz's office for sitting, snacking, warming, and bathrooms after 7 hours of standing in the cold!
Finally, back downtown to pick up some Obama gear!
The "Peace Tree"???
REALLY?
On Wednesday Ben and I walked around the Mall to see the sites. One of our last stops was the White House. President Obama...where are you? Not out on the lawn today?
