Inauguration

I really am so sorry for being lax in posting lately! Please don't stop tuning in, I promise to be better!

So let me tell you about yesterday. Two of my colleagues from Dallas were up with their wives (Mike B., Elizabeth, Keith and Debbie) for the big day. We went to the Texas Black Tie and Boots ball on Monday night, and had a blast.

Possibly, a bit too much of a blast.

Because Tuesday morning came way too quickly, and let's just say I was not feeling my best. AT ALL. But the house got up, bagels and coffee and juice all around, a taxi cab to the metro, and we were headed downtown.

The metro ride, which should take about 20 minutes, was about an hour and 20 minutes. In a packed car that jerked forward and rolled back, jerked forward and rolled back, jerked forward and rolled back. We were bundled up prepared for the cold, only it was very hot and oh, so, crowded. Did I mention the jerking forward? How about the rolling back? How about the fact that I drank so much the night before I almost lost my breakfast a few times?

Yeah, the ride was kind of like that.

But everyone was in good spirits, and we struck up conversation with a group of guys that had decided at 6 p.m. the night before to drive from Atlanta up to DC. And so they did!

We finally arrived downtown, and poked our heads first in my office to freshen up and get some water. I'm at 12th and G Streets. Then we started walking.

We walked with all these people down to the mall:

It really was quite an incredible sight. There were so many people. A lot of roads were shut down and there was tons of security. Lots and lots of street vendors popped up all over the place, too, since there was no vehicular traffic.

The swearing in was first, then the parade. But the parade route was in between my office and the Mall, and there were only a few spots that were open for you to cross over Pennsylvania Ave. One of those was at 12th Street, and we had planned to just walk down that. But so did several other hundred thousand people, so we ended up having to walk back to 18th, then down to the Mall.

We arrived at the Mall closer to the Lincoln Memorial than the Capitol. There weren't quite as many people, and no security check points.

But there were porta potties:

The closest we got to the Capitol was the Washington Monument.


Because right in front of the Washington Monument, it looked like this:


So we backtracked a bit, and stood close to 17th Street to watch the swearing in on a jumbotron. Here was our view:


And yes, that guy's head did get in my way.

But the view behind us, towards the Lincoln, was really cool:



Have I mentioned how cold it was yet? It was cold. We went from sweating in the Metro to frigid outside. I was actually happy for the crowds, who at least blocked most of the wind. Except for the wind on my feet. After standing through the swearing in for an hour, my toes were absolutely frozen.

We were down at 17th and Constitution at at the end of the ceremony, we (and everyone else) started piling off the Mall. Walked with the same crowds up 18th Street to L, where Mike's office is. Freshened up in there, and walked past sandwich shop after sandwich shop with lines out the door.

Mike had the best idea of the day, and we went to Morton's for lunch. Morton's is across the street from his office, but it's on the second floor of an office building. All office buildings were shut down pretty tight yesterday so the public wouldn't come in to get out of the cold or use bathrooms or anything. So most people probably didn't realize Morton's was open since you couldn't get to it from the street. We went up to Morton's and dove into huge hamburgers.

FINALLY, my stomach started to feel better from the night of partying!

We thought that walking that far up away from the Mall would help with catching the Metro, but so did hundreds of thousands of other people. (We discovered yesterday that with over a million people, it's hard to have an original thought). The lines were so long to get into the Farragut West stop that they spilled out of the Metro, up the escalators, and down the street.

Plan B, we decided to walk to the Foggy Bottom Metro on 23rd and I. Here's what that one looked like:

On to Plan C. We walked down 23rd and across the Memorial Bridget to Arlington Cemetery. Did you know if takes much longer to walk across that bridge than to drive it? It does. At least for the whole walk, we got to see a police boat that had run itself into a bank of ice and get stuck. That was entertaining.

Thank goodness we didn't need Plan D, which was to walk along Route 110 to Pentagon City, because we actually got on a train at Arlington Cemetery. Thanks to the help of Google Pedometer, we know we walked 6.2 miles yesterday.

Back home, I was exhausted. Still had a house full of company (and for that company reading this post, LOVED having you. Really. ;-) ). Which meant I needed to feed said house full of company. We did take out pizza, and then we were all in our respective bedrooms by 8:00 p.m.

There you go! The inauguration! Quite a post, huh? I guess now you're sorry I came through on my threat to post more!

But in all seriousness, it was an incredible day. Historic doesn't quite do it justice. It was so moving to see so many people wanting to take part in the ceremony.

I'm still exhausted (thanks to getting up at 4:30 a.m. to take Keith to the airport!), so I'll be in bed very, very shortly! Goodnight!