Inauguration
My wife and I, like other Texas residents, had Bush as a leader for four years in Texas then for eight more as President. After those long twelve years we were more than ready to see him go. But more than that, we are overjoyed to see Obama take the office. This is the first politician who’s speeches I actually believe.
So, despite the cold weather and the anticipated crowds, we went to the inauguration. I attempted to post twitter and flickr updates to friends and family but as soon as we got to the National Mall that failed. Just too many people were using their cell phones in too small an area.
What follows are the time-stamped twitter posts that got through interspersed with my later and more complete comments. I’ve fixed typos and grammar problems in those posts that came from typing with my thumbs. Note this is rather longer than my usual posts.
3:57 AM: “Well, the tickets didn’t work out. Too good to be true I guess. It’ll be good just to be part of it!”
We thought last night that we might get some silver tickets that weren’t being used. But, it turns out they were being used after all. We would find out later that silver tickets weren’t such a good deal after all - there were problems with silver ticket holders getting it. So, it worked out better for us in the National Mall crowd.
3:58 AM: We’re up and getting ready now. Bus leaves at 5 am, leaves from a 30 min drive away from the house.
We have to leave at 4:20 AM to make the bus. Amazing how cold and dark it is at this time of day during the winter!
5:08 AM: On the bus. Darn cold out there!
5:34 AM: Busses are rolling. People are a bit hyper.
I’d thought I might take a nap on the way in. But that’s not going to happen. We’re all too keyed up. We have a group around us who all know each other and are trading quips and comments back and forth.
The direct route into the city can’t be used. I-66 is closed as are many of the bridges into D.C. The bus will take the I-395 beltway around the south of the city to RFK stadium on the opposite side of the city from where we are. Shuttle busses will take us the 3.5 miles from there to near the National Mall.
5:51 AM: In Tysons Corner area. I66 is closed.
We’re seeing police cars stopped along the side of the highway with their lights flashing. Big signs warn that I-66 is closed into Washington D.C. The security for this is very tight. Airspace restrictions affect most airports around here for many miles, roads and bridges are closed, the Metro is having special rules, some stations are exit only for example.
However, as I notice later in the city, National Airport is open and takeoffs continue all day. This airport is less than a minute flight-time from the Mall, the Whitehouse, and the Capital. Meanwhile airports 30 miles away are essentially closed.
5:57 AM: Some busses going the other way. Must be GOP.
There’s not much traffic going the opposite direction. Then a chain of four or more busses are going the opposite direction. No idea where they’re going or why they’re leaving now!
6:27 AM: Near RFK parking. Then to shuttle busses.
Massive numbers of busses are here from everywhere. More than I’ve ever seen in one place. Traffic is a mess and our driver isn’t sure where to go. He’s talking on his cell with the other three drivers of our busses. But we eventually get directed by volunteers and National Guard to our parking location. We save the location on GPS and by name (8C).
7:17 AM: Sunrise in 15 min. The dawn of a new era http://piurl.com/150Q : current locations.
7:43 AM: Still on shuttle. VIP busses are passing us w/ police escorts. SRO on the bus. I’m the one standing. (By choice.)
7:57 AM: Off the bus!
We took the shuttle bus from RFK to near the Mall. Everyone on the bus except for my wife and I were from Raleigh NC, many were related as well. We talked to some of them. When he learned that we lived near here one guy asked me, “So you’ve see the inauguration before then?”. I told him, “We’ve never had a reason to want to see it before.”
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Once off the shuttle we flowed along with the crowd to the Mall. The nearest entrances to the Mall were closed as the eastern portion was already filled. Multiple volunteers repeated that to the crowd. The 14th street security barrier was open, so we made for that.
It was about a mile walk to where we ended up. Full crowds all the way there, and getting denser and denser as we got closer. No street traffic was permitted, except for the occasional emergency vehicle. Just as well as people filled the street. At the edge of the Mall jersey barriers were set up with a 3-4 foot opening. The massive crowd squeezed through that or just climbed over the barrier.
My internet failed when we got to the Mall. Just too many phones in too small an area. I was able to later receive and send a text though.
We ended up in front of a CBS boom camera with our back to the temporary fence around it and the boom swinging over our heads. There was a jumbotron monitor in view and the Capital building in the distance. That was our spot for the rest of the day. We stayed there and didn’t move. There were a fair number of people already there and more came. We ended up with a couple feet to move back and forth or jump up and down to stay warm.
Being in the crowd helped keep us a bit warmer. But being tall got me more headwind, so to speak. We had “hiking snacks”: homemade dried fruit from last summer, homemade beef jerky, and some almonds and a bottle of water.
The jumbotrons were replaying the “We Are One” event of the day before. The sound and picture were out of sync. And the closed captioning was behind both sound and picture. All the jumbotrons stayed out-of-sync through the whole inauguration. This made it a little to distracting to watch too closely, but no one seemed to mind too much. We were all just glad to be there.
People were friendly and nice and talked to each other. We ended up with two teenage kids in front of us from Atlanta, their families were elsewhere. They didn’t know much civics and asked us questions. My wife is a teacher and of course this was a teachable moment if there ever was one!
My wife answered their questions and filled them in without going overboard (like I tend to do). She’s exceptionally good at this and those kids lucked out. But the kids did have some opionions about some of the people we saw saying, “Ok, I’ll give him a ‘yay’, but he doesn’t get my ‘whoo-hoo’”. The latter done while swaying left and right.
When people started coming out from the Capital and filling the VIP area the crowd booed three people: Bush, Cheney, and Lieberman. The first view of Obama was cheered wildly.
Now, it’s been said that the booing was “bad form”. I disagree. All three took an oath to defend and protect the constitution and all three did not do that, in fact they undermined that document. They’ve been in a bubble for so long - especially Bush and Cheney - that I believe it is right and proper for them to finally hear a democratic response!
Finally the real event started and built up to the delivery of the oath. On the Mall, people had tears streaming and where whooping and cheering, taking pictures of the jumbotrons and just soaking the moment it.
A few people, the coldest, left immediately after the Oath. Most stayed through the speech.
I found the speech very different from the usual political speech. It was the kind of thing you hear from a good friend or mentor who’s telling you to straighten up and fly right, to get you to really deal with a life situation. It seemed very dense with ideas to me and I planed to listen to it and read it later. Gusty 20 degF weather wasn’t the best help for concentration.
After the speech, the crowd started to loosen up as some people left. The crowd size got down to the level of a normal crowd for an event on the Mall. We wandered around, found the porta-potties for the first time that day, and gratefully used them.
We found a food stand and bought hot dogs, talked to a few people, saw some floats ready for the parade, and generally ambled around figuring out what to do next. The parade was out. We’d had to make a decision when we first got there for the Mall or the parade - the crowds were too big to try and see both.
My toes were so cold (despite insulated boots, wool socks, and heat packets in each boot) that I couldn’t feel them anymore. My wife was suffering too, but not quite as much fortunately. We tried ducking in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, but they just shut it and were trying to get people out. They were over capacity. We paused in the vestibule to get two more heat packets in my boots, under my toes this time, and went back out. The winds were picking up and the trash from some 2 million or more people was blowing about. That bothered me - I wish we all had been neater
We found the MSNBC booth and watched Chris Matthews, Keith Olberman, Rachael Maddow, and Eugene Robertson for a while and waved at the boom camera as it swept over the crowd. We just had fun!
It was time to get back on the shuttle for our ride home. We made our way back to the pickup point on the I-395 frontage road and found a massive crowd there. This was the first time that day that we saw anyone upset. The shuttle bus loading was going much too slowly - after all, we’re all going to RFK!
We ended up keeping on walking to the back of the line of busses that were loading, and got one there. Of course as we left that area my internet was available again:
3:30 PM: Back on the shuttle. Lost net comm most of the day. Text got thru, but no net. A wonderful day! Worth the crowd and cold.
3:33 PM: Watched from a little east of 14th at on the mall. Near CBS boom cam. Later saw MSNBC.
3:38 PM: The crowd booed Lieberman cheered Obama hissed Bush and went crazy when BHO took the oath.
3:40 PM: People were cold, some not quite dressed for it. But no one left till after the oath. Most stayed till after the speech.
3:43 PM: We stood for hours on the cold. The wind was bad and the crowd was intense. It was completely worth it.
4:23 PM: Made it back to the Leesburg bus in time. People already here are sleeping.
4:35 PM: We are missing the parade. We had a choice this morning - we could do the inaug. or the parade. Crowds were to big for both!
5:05 PM: Heading home now. Sunset is falling on a new country. The real work begins tomorrow morning. I may nap now though, it has been a long day.
5:09 PM: Aviation note: National airpport was open all day! I don’t understand it. This while other airports further away were basically closed.
We got home a little before 7 pm (and with takeout picked up along the way), tired and very happy to see a new start for us all.
January 23rd, 2009 at 09:35
Great eyes and ears for us - thanks! I had to WORK, but found time through the day to check things out, and then watched replays many times over.
I think the best part about all of this is that, although there are high expectations for our collective future, you are in the vast majority in recognizing the hard work ahead. He has a lot to live up to, but he has the talent, and hopefully the team, to get some good stuff done.
And to have a thoughtful, eloquent, measured, and enthusiastic young man at the healm and on the world stage…ahhhh.
January 23rd, 2009 at 18:18
The rest of us who stayed in Raleigh were snowed in, so we had our own inauguration parties with close-by neighbors and friends. Just think, all the kids who went to DC missed the first good snow here in more than a couple years. Quite a choice, but they have all said it was worth it.
Great update, thanks….
January 25th, 2009 at 22:44
I think the most pleasant thing I heard all week, having had to miss the inauguration, was on the radio when the announcer/commentator said “President Barack Obama”. What a euphoric moment.
I also note that I have had to add the words “Barack” and “Obama” to my dictionary.