My Spot at the Inauguration

I am still really tired after a very long day yesterday, followed by an action-packed day today. I have so many thoughts and observations that I am still trying to process 36 hours later, but I can’t manage to spill all of that out here tonight. I am exhausted. But it looks like DC survived this epic influx of people.

I will say that is the most people I have ever been in the midst of in my entire life. The thought of it completely overwhelmed me. I NEVER want to be in a crowd that large again. And everyone was so nice and patient and in an amazing mood. It was unbelievable.

I was standing on the little ledge next to the small building on the east side of the Washington Monument. Thanks for Ryan’s Obamania, which lead me to this picture of the crowd. I downloaded the shot of the entire Mall and added a star to show approximately where we were standing.

To give you a sense of the growing crowd… these are the crowd shots behind me as the morning progressed.

A lot of people

Even more people

And even more

And this was our view…

In the far, far distance, you can see the Capitol. In front of it stands a Jumbotron where we were watching the activity, plus a giant scaffolding directly in front of the Capitol. But technically, we could see the Capitol. It was just a few miles away.

And to my right,

stood a second Jumbotron, which was a little closer. It looked more like a small post-it note versus a postage stamp. The sound was much better than at the Concert on Sunday. So we could hear everything without being that close to an actual video screen.

With over three hours of walking and many freezing cold miles later, we somehow made it to a random cafe for lunch and on to Henry’s office. Despite what the radio said, we were able to do both the inauguration and the parade. We made it to the office right on time for the parade, which was delayed for at least an hour. There was great excitement when the Obamas left the warmth of their car and walked down Pennsylvania. But they took refuge again by the time they made it to our block. But not so for the Veep. They stuck it out well past 13th Street.

Note the Bidens walking down the street near the end. You can see Jill Biden’s red coat from 12 stories above Pennsylvania.

And for all of my photos of both the inauguration and the parade…

There are a lot of pictures, but you should try to stick around for the parade. Not because they are any good. But because a lot of people abandoned the parade route by the time the marching bands rolled through. After a long day outside in the cold, I imagine that they deserve all of the support they can get.