We were both up and ready in our winter gear, long johns & all knowing it was going to be cold, windy, possibly rainy and left the house before six in the morning... But we should have left sooner...
Of course, being such the historic day as it was, we were not the only ones who wanted to see the inauguration our new President of Hope. Once the delayed Metro train got us to our L'Enfant Plaza destination and the packed train car slowly emptied, we arrived in the station only to wait for another 45 minutes just to get out of the packed Metro station!
After finally exiting the Metro station & winding our way down a few blocks we found the mall area to be not much better. It is no exageration when you hear millions of people were there to take part in the ceremony. At one point, as we were trying to make our way to the blue ticket holder entrance (since Jill scored us blue tickets), there was a point when trying to cross a crowded street when Jill had trouble breathing and her feet were actually being lifted from the pavement because we were being pushed so hard from all sides.
For all the planning and organization that went into this thing it actually was quite horribly executed. I think heavy numbers were anticipated, but not to the extent that people turned out. Anyway, after four to five hours had passed since we left our house, we made the three or so mile journey to our final destination, front & center!
The tickets weren't actually for seats, but the very first standing room just beyond the seats, so still a decent view compared to those watching a jumbo-tron back by the Washington Monument a half-mile away. Once Jill got setup, perched on a pile of wood-chip mulch so she could peak over the half a dozen or so rows of people in front of us, we were good to go.
Even though there was an annoyingly huge TV-camera stand right in front of the central podium for all the viewers at home, our view was still impressive.
Sadly one of our favorite parts was hearing the negative response to the announcement of Bush. Surely not the fondest of fairwells. Our video (below) does not do it justice the affect of 1 million people booing in unison.
After all the festivities were over, it was another crazy feet to get out of DC. Metro had closed all stops immediately off of the mall to avoid too many overcrowding. Since there aren't too many walking paths out of the District either, DC police opend up a number of the major highways so we chose I395 as our south-bound exit. It was crazy walking with a loads of people over a four & five lane highway out of town. After a couple hour walk home we found our exit and were very happy to kick our feet up after a long day on our feet.
GOOOBAMA!!!
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