And now, we have the long walk home and we only had to go about 1 mile from the mall to Bekah's apartment. I can't imagine the commute for the poor folks who had to get back on the Metro or train to Virginia or Maryland - I still hyper-venilate a little in crowds
Even though we were close to the Capitol, we couldn't see anything or hear anything so we walked back to the Washington Monument to watch the inauguration on a jumbo tron....it wasn't the view that we imagined after scoring our coveted tickets, but still so thankful and glad that we could be there to witness history.
We got close...
So, we didn't get in the ticketed section, but we got pretty close:
And then we hit this next mob of people and no one even knew which direction the checkpoint was located - not even the Capitol Police - did I mention that they were really nice and helpful?
And we bust through to the next security checkpoint (and I really do mean bust through) - looking back to the mob behind us across Independence Ave
Ahhh, the sweet Silver Gate, almost there...
The not-so-nice nor helpful Capitol Police - there's the Silver Gate - so close yet so far...
The line turned to the mob as the inauguration time got closer and closer - all these people were behind us in line:
The nice, somewhat-orderly line for the Silver Gate:
The motely crew - full of hope - oh so disillusioned...
We've got the golden (or silver) tickets! Once we scored them at the Senate offices, I did feel a little like I was in the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and should be holding them up screaming, "I've got the golden ticket" - here's the tickets and inspecting them in line at 8 am on the big day...
So, Spanky and I had tickets and had to pick them up from Senator Pryor's Office on Monday. Jo and their friend, Brian, went with me and casually mentioned to the guy in front of them that they didn't have tickets - he happened to be the chair of the DNC in Utah and gave us two silver tickets - score!
Then, when we went in the building, we realized that other offices were giving out their extra tickets and then, it became a game of how many tickets can we get - it was crazy - people we running from office to office to see if they had extra tickets - one guy stopped Jo and I and asked in a whisper - so you guys looking for tickets? (almost in a voice that a drug dealer might use to ask if you're looking to score some heroin or something - it was hysteria) - he directed us to an office downstairs where they were rumored to be tickets so off we ran with everyone else in that direction to learn that we needed a CA ID, which none of us had, so we decided to focus our search on Illinois, Maryland and Arkansas. We ended up getting an additional four tickets - it was crazy - but read next segment to find out how useful those tickets actually were...
We are One Concert on Sunday - it was awesome although Spanky wasn't too amused (see last photo), but really, how can you be that upset when you're looking at Bono??
Let the festivities begin - Saturday night - in order as the night progressed (as if you couldn't tell from the pictures):
Do we smell, Bekah?
Not really sure...
Not really sure...
Poor Jo is under that big hug somewhere...
Again, ummm, not exacly sure...magic dancing hands??
Before the inundation of tourists, our office took a quick tour of the empty mall and thousands of port-a-potties for the big event:
