2:30am – Awake and make sure Amy is up and around. Some of us need 90 minutes to get ready…that would not be me.
4:00am – Leave the house and head toward the VRE station. The station isn’t very far away but I have no clue what the traffic will be like. Luckily we get there quickly and experience no traffic. In fact there are only a few people at the station, but better early than late.
5:05am – VRE Train leaves the station. Its a jubilant crowd with a very positive outlook for so early in the morning. I am shocked that when we get to the Burke Station and I see my boss getting on our train, in my car to be exact, his ticket is for 2 trains later than mine. Seems that he also got to the station early and they were basically just loading the cars full as they could rather than make people wait for specific trains.
6:15am – Arrive at L’Effant station. As soon as we exit out on the streets we see hundreds of people walking down the middle of the road, all heading toward the Mall. We pass several vendors selling Obama goods and people hawking food. We maneuver toward 3rd street and the entrance to the Silver ticket area. As we get closer we see how there is a line running alongside of the Native American and Air/Space Museums. I check with someone and they confirm that it is the Silver ticket line.
6:20am – We plant ourselves in the Silver ticket line for a few minutes before the caffeine bug starts getting to Amy. I point her toward the nearest Starbucks and she is off on a mission. Even I want something warm this morning as it is very cold.
7:15am – Amy finds her way back to the line. My hot Chai Tea Latte is at best warm when she returns, yes its that cold. We are slowly moving down the sidewalk and I am fending off the people who keep trying to ‘join’ the line around me. I get some angry looks when I tell them that the end of the line is back THERE, but no one says a peep. Sometimes its handy to be a big guy.
8:00am – Our line, as it get closer to the gate area, turns from a line to a mass of people. My attempts at keeping people from getting ahead of us is dropped at this point. Its one thing to tell 3 people to get behind me, a whole other thing to tell 200!
8:45am – We breach the bottleneck and rush over to the security checkpoints. I say security with a grin, the police have multiple checkpoints with 2 officers at each, one male and one female. They glance (at best) at my pass and I get patted down by the officer. I turn to the female line to see where Amy is and I spot that right next to me is someone I used to work with, Dawn Nalepa. I say “hi Dawn” and she just says hi back…then does a wicked double take when she realizes who it is. Small world with such a huge crowd.
9:00am – We find our spot in the Silver area, as far forward as we can while still seeing the Jumbotron. The crowd is constantly growing but not out of hand. We can see the Capital quite well and the people on the balconies look like people, though tiny tiny ones. I am very happy that Amy was able to get the tickets and come out for this amazing event. Now the wait begins.
10:30am – The Marine Corp band begins playing and the Jumbotrons begin showing shots of people arriving inside the capital. There are also a couple of choral groups that perform and it provides a nice distraction to the milling crowd and just how cold it is outside.
11:20am – All the former Presidents are announced and seated. I am a little shocked that papa Bush gets a smattering of boos. Perhaps I don’t remember his time in office well enough, but really don’t recall him doing anything to get the general public upset.
11:30am – The President and the VP come out to be seated. We see this on the jumbotrons and as soon as Bush gets on the screen the entire mall is filled with BOOO’s. I refuse to join in. This is more of a deference to the mans position than to the man himself. I never voted for him, didn’t like his policies, felt that he gave a bad image to the country…but I will not boo him.
11:45am – The President elect appears and the mall goes wild! It almost feels like the roar will lift you off the ground if you let it. Of course I join in.
11:50am – The invocation is given by Dr Rick Warren. I am still befuddled as to why this guy is here. He is an open supporter of policies directly in opposition to the Obama plan. I can only guess it is due to a hope of bi-partisan work from Obama’s team. His prayer is short but meaningful and seems to be well placed on this day. He still gets some boo’s and hisses from the crowd.
11:55am – Time for the lady with the hat to sing. Aretha Franklin performs ‘My Country ‘Tis of Thee’. Everyone is trying to sing along, but you can tell who ‘should’ be singing and who actually knows the words.
11:57am – Joe Biden is sworn in as the VP. I am really sweating the timeline, I know its kinda silly, but I also know that by law the President steps down at noon and the new one has to be sworn in before noon. There is no way they are going to make it.
11:59am – A classical performance by Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Anthony McGill and Gabriela Montero. Later I find that they only ‘acted’ like they were playing as the cold would have made the playing of the instruments difficult.
12:05pm – Justice Roberts swears in our 44th President, Barak Obama. At first I thought Obama flubbed the swearing in, but later I find that it was Roberts that stumbled in his wording. Of course, the crowd goes wild.
12:10pm – President Obama begins his speech. I am quite happy with the words he says. He speaks to virtually everyone, mentioning Muslims and non-believers along with the typical Christians and Jews. He talks about how the US wants to be friends with everyone in the world but also spoke how the nations leaders need to be truthful to their people about us, or we won’t stand for it.
The speech only takes about 20 minutes, but it is deeply moving. I actually got goose bumps a couple of times, and it wasn’t from the cold.
12:30pm – Poem by Elizabeth Alexander and the benediction by Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowery. The poem kinda left me cold (no pun), especially when you talk about Lettuce during a ceremony of this importance. But the Reverend had a great benediction and at parts actually sounded more poetic than the poet.
12:40pm – The Obama’s leave the stage and the crowd starts heading for the exit. And of course they have not opened any additional exit areas for us, so we are once again funneled through a small space. I think Amy got a little flustered because the crowd was a moving organism, not letting us move on our own accord but simply flow in the river of people.
12:55pm – We look up in the sky and see Executive One, the chopper that is carrying Bush to the airport for his trip back to Texas. The crowd cheers and starts chanting ‘Na Na Na Na, Hey Hey Hey, Good-bye!’
2:10pm – We finally make it through the crowd and over to the Good Stuff Eatery where we were meeting some friends for lunch. They were still trying to make it through the crowds, so we decided to get in line and grab a table.
2:45pm – As luck would have it, by the time we got our food and a table, the rest showed up. Sophia in her Jane hat, her friend Brenda from Puerto Rico and the always stunning Margo. They load up on Obama Burgers and join us upstairs.
The restaurant is very nice, small but cozy, really good fries and good burgers. Also they have several flat screen TV’s upstairs, each showing a different cable News channel, so we get to watch 4 different perspectives of the Inaugural Parade.
3:45pm – We stumble out of the restaurant in near burger coma’s from eating and finally getting warm. Margo has a good idea about heading over to the Tune Inn bar for drinks and to watch the rest of the parade coverage. This bar is very nice, it would be my hang out if I had something like it in my neighborhood. Unfortunately, out in the suburbs I do not. So I make the best of it while I am here.
4:00pm – Rather to my surprise, Obama gets out of the limo and starts walking the parade route. The crowd in the bar goes a little wild to see it happen.
4:30pm – Myself and Amy leave the bar in our quest to make it to Union Station in time for our return train. We have plenty of time, but I wanted to be sure to pad things in case we ran into any trouble. There have been reports coming into my phone all day about Metro station closures and delays, so we walk the mile to Union.
5:00pm – It is still very cold out but walking helps. There are still hundreds of people on the streets just milling about. The lack of cars in an otherwise heavy traffic area is kind of bizarre to me, but cool at the same time. We arrive at Union to a crowd of about 1000 people outside. There are police officers who are trying to direct the crowds, so I step up to find out whats going on.
Apparently there is no(t much) waiting for the Metro lines, but all the trains are running 2 hours late. This just torks me off! There is no way that the VRE is going to be that off schedule, so I keep asking all the other police and get the same answer. At this point I turn to Amy and tell her we are heading to L’Effant Plaza.
5:30pm – We have a nice walk through what can only be described as a nuclear blast zone. The entire Capital grounds and the Mall are a mess. The normally super strong buffalo grass is all torn and trampled, there is tons of litter everywhere and all the barricades that were directing people earlier in the day are now flung open or fallen over. We are not impeded by anyone so the walk is quite straight and direct with only occasional stops for sightseeing or souvenir purchases. Oh, and Starbucks.
5:45pm – The train arrives at L’Effant, not our train but they let us board anyway. It is virtually empty of passengers coming from Union Station. So I am quite sure there are plenty of people outside the station listening to those crazy cops about a mythical delay. I feel sorry for them for a bit, but really just want to warm up and relax.
7:00pm – Arrive back in Manassas for a quick dinner and then home to unwind. Surprisingly I do not fall asleep until almost 10pm as I am still wired from the day. A great day, and the kickoff of the rest of my life.
