I spent a few days in Washington D.C. surrounding the events of Barrak Obama’s Inauguration and it’s in the top 10 best experiences of my life. Spending time with family and in our nations capital was great but what was really amazing was being surrounded by happy people that shared my views and hope for the future. Everyone was there to support our new president and celebrate the “end of an error.” It’s hard to describe the feeling of seeing a smile on everyone’s face while surrounded by over 2 million people. It was the largest gathering this nation has ever seen and no one was seriously injured and there were zero arrests.
On Sunday we attended the “We Are One” Concert and this was the first time we all got a feeling of the massiveness of this event
On our walk home we really got a feeling for the amount of people in the crowd. Every street was blocked off and filled as far as the eye could see with people.
That night we discovered that my older brother Benjamin, who works for Sharrod Brown, had gotten 2 tickets for the inauguration which he decided to give to my parents. This allowed them to leave a little later in the morning and gave them a really good view. My younger brother Ryan and I however got up at 5am and walked to Union Station to meet Aron and his friend Frankie for the trek to the Mall. Normally a walk of 13 blocks, the powers that be decided it was a good idea to close all roads and route everyone out and around the city. So what we thought was going to be a 20 min walk turned out to be an hour or so and somewhere around 5 miles shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of thousands of people.
Once we got there and happy with our location we had around 4 hours to burn in the blistering cold. You could leave and attempt (rumor was over an hour wait) to get food and use the restroom but the hassle of leaving and coming back wasn’t worth it in the end. And being Tipton’s, my brother and I were loaded with food and drink already. Oh, and our water started to freeze while we stood there to give you an idea how cold it was.
Once the event started it was pretty packed but again the crowd was happy and just glad to be a part of this event, as were we. It made the 5 a.m. wake-up, the 5 mile walk and the freezing cold all worth it.
After he was sworn in (kinda) we lost Aron in the crowd and met up with my parents. Which was a little tricky because of the crowds and the fact that cell phones were almost useless. Luckily we brought walkie-talkies! From there we walked up to the capital building and then to my brothers office building to meet him. As it turns out the corner of his office and the capital building was the start of the parade. So again we sat in the cold for what we thought was going to be 30 minutes but turned out to be over 2 hours (Senator Ted Kennedy had a seizure at an inaugural lunch) And all for 30 seconds of getting to see Obama drive by.
At the time I was very cold and very tired and it didn’t seem worth it but I did get to see him and I will probably never be able to again.
Like I said this experience is in my top 10. I had a wonderful time and thank my family for making it possible. I wish our new president all the best in the coming years!
One last shot from where my parents were standing
And to see these pictures and more visit my Picasa page.
Tags: inauguration, Obama, president