Inauguration Day
2009 February 21
Inauguration weekend, Washington DC. It was busy. After Obama won the election I didn’t really think much about Inauguration Day festivities. Then my sister called wondering if she, Jeff and three other people could stay at our place for the Inauguration. “Sure, why not!” I knew then that I would be participating in the festivities one way or another. A few weeks later we found out that a friend of ours would be able to get us all inauguration tickets. That sealed the deal. We were able to secure yellow tickets which put us right in front of the capitol, off to the north side (all ticketed sections were color coded).
Jen and Jeff arrived Saturday afternoon, however our first big event wasn’t until Sunday afternoon. There was an Inauguration Day concert planned at the Lincoln Memorial with a variety of performers including U2, Bruce Springsteen, Garth Brooks and Stevie Wonder. We showed up about 30 minutes before the concert and of course the Lincoln Memorial area was already a mob scene. I’m not sure why events are planned at the Lincoln Memorial at all – it’s pretty much the worst location for a concert in North America. You have a giant reflecting pool which takes up all the prime viewing space. Then, on the side, you have a row a trees so you can only fit a small number of spectators on the side of the pool before you get behind the trees. The majority of the people view the concert from several hundred yards away. They spent enough money on the concert, it wouldn’t be much more to just drain the reflecting pool for spectators. They should probably drain it anyway to clean it out – if you’ve ever looked at the pool up close, it’s pretty nasty.
Anyway, we ended up watching the concert from about halfway between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial – and when I saw “watching the concert” I mean “watching the jumbotron in front of us” because the actual concert was several hundred meters away. Still, it was a fun time.
Jen and Jeff are in the middle of buying a house and the realtor ended up calling them in the middle of the concert – and not just anytime in the concert either. Jeff got the call during Garth Brook’s rendition of “Shout” – pretty much the loudest part of the concert with everyone in the audience jumping up and down yelling “shout”. Poor Jeff was huddled on the ground with a phone to his ear trying to hear the realtor.
The next day – Monday – our three other guests arrived via train from Boston. One of them – David – started his journey the day before from Tucson, AZ. Monday night we made ourselves snack packs for the inauguration and planned the next day.
We woke up early and prepared for our adventure. The outside temperature was about 20 degrees F but was expected to rise to about 32 degrees, although with 25 MPH gusts. We were prepared. I had on four layers and we brought toe warmer and hand warmer heat packs. We set out from the apartment at 6:30am. By that hour the Metro trains going into DC were expected to already be packed – especially by the time they got to our stop. As such, we decided to avoid the Metro altogether and walk to the mall. There were a few others on the bike path we took in, but we didn’t run into big crowds until we got to the Washington Monument. At that point the crowds were streaming towards the capitol with a sizeable group camped out on the high ground around the monument.
The yellow ticket entrance was on the north side of the capitol so we crossed the Mall and started walking up Madison Dr. For several blocks we were walking behind James Carville. Security was tight. They had the whole downtown area and mall cordoned off into sections making it a real pain in the arse to get from one section to another. We found this out firsthand. We made it to about the National Gallery of Art when we were turned back because the road was closed. We went back a couple blocks and tried to go North to no avail. Finally we found a checkpoint that got us into the parade area – of course we didn’t want to be in the parade area but we had to cross it because we apparently needed to be on the north side of Pennsylvania Ave. Of course, no one could give us a straight answer. We knew where we needed to be, but the security barricades where thwarting our attempts. None of the police we found seemed to know anything about how to get to various ticketed entrances. I guess that was understandable since they were from places like San Antonio and Detroit and probably didn’t know anything about the DC area. We got into the parade area but had to wait to cross Pennsylvania Ave. as they were only letting small groups at a time pass. Now that we were on the north side of Pennsylvania we figured we could just walk up to our ticket gate near the capitol. We thought wrong.
Again we ran into an impassable security barrier and had to turn around. We walked back a few blocks and saw another security checkpoint for people coming into the parade area from the north. It was our only way out to go north so we took it. There were thousands of people outside the checkpoint trying to get in so we were hoping we made the right choice by leaving because there was no way we’d be getting back in. We walked north a few more blocks and cut east again – hoping this time we could get to our checkpoint. A couple blocks down we had to push ourway through an intersection bottlenecked with confused ticket holders and one police officer with his car who wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. We forced our way through the crowd and finally found the line for yellow ticket holders near Union Station. We followed the line back looking for its start point. We walked and walked – there seemed to be no end to the line. After a bit we came to a spot where the line was wide as confused purple ticket holders were pushing through – here we just jumped in. It was now 9am – it had taken us 2.5 hours to do what should have taken 1.5 hours.
We waited in that yellow line for 2 hours before we finally got it. We didn’t have any problem getting through the security checkpoint (our 2rd that day), but they did take away Katie’s clementine and Jeff’s apple. As all Americans know, fruit is a national security risk. It should be restricted to locations such as Hollywood where, when it explodes in a 12 megaton nuclear blast (as fruit often does) it will not kill anyone important. They allowed the rest of our snack packs through so apparently Reece’s Pieces and granola bars are not a threat to national security.
We missed some of the interlude music, but were able to see the full inauguration. Despite having good tickets, we were still about 100 meters from the podium since the yellow standing room section was off to the side. We were able to see the speakers, but they were still pretty small. There was a jumbotron and speakers right in front of us that helped out. The actress Rosario Dawson was standing right next to us – our second brush with fame that day – although, I would have never known it if two of my party weren’t avid Us Weekly readers.
When they announced Barak Obama the crowd went wild, as expected. On the jumbotron they showed the crowd behind us on the mall. Everyone was violently waving an American flag. Wait a minute – where did they get those flags? I looked around our section. None of us had American flags. We must have been put in the “people against the waving of small American flags” section. After taking 4.5 hours to get to our section I was hoping for a kick-ass speech. It was ok, but nothing I remembered 5 minutes after it was over. The best speech of the day, which few people listened to because it was preceded by some crappy poem, was the Rev. Joseph Lowery’s benediction. His speech should have been the benediction and the poem.
“…we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right.”
It rhymes! Who can’t like that.
Getting out of the mall area was infinitely easier than getting in as after the inauguration the crowd took it upon themselves to tear down various sections of the fencing – most likely in frustration at getting in. After taking a few pictures in front of the capitol building we were able to take a straight-shot walk back to 14th street and home. The highway was closed to traffic so pedestrians had full use of the 14th street bridge.
We got back around 3pm and relaxed for an hour or show while re-watching some of the inauguration on TV. Some of our Boston guests let us in on an event I didn’t know about – the $2 menu at McCormick and Schmicks. We went there for dinner and I was able to get a burger and fries for $2 (and a couple $6 beers, which I’m sure is how they make their money, but still).
I calculated our walking that day to be about 11.5 miles. I slept well that night.
Jen and Jeff arrived Saturday afternoon, however our first big event wasn’t until Sunday afternoon. There was an Inauguration Day concert planned at the Lincoln Memorial with a variety of performers including U2, Bruce Springsteen, Garth Brooks and Stevie Wonder. We showed up about 30 minutes before the concert and of course the Lincoln Memorial area was already a mob scene. I’m not sure why events are planned at the Lincoln Memorial at all – it’s pretty much the worst location for a concert in North America. You have a giant reflecting pool which takes up all the prime viewing space. Then, on the side, you have a row a trees so you can only fit a small number of spectators on the side of the pool before you get behind the trees. The majority of the people view the concert from several hundred yards away. They spent enough money on the concert, it wouldn’t be much more to just drain the reflecting pool for spectators. They should probably drain it anyway to clean it out – if you’ve ever looked at the pool up close, it’s pretty nasty.
Anyway, we ended up watching the concert from about halfway between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial – and when I saw “watching the concert” I mean “watching the jumbotron in front of us” because the actual concert was several hundred meters away. Still, it was a fun time.
Jen and Jeff are in the middle of buying a house and the realtor ended up calling them in the middle of the concert – and not just anytime in the concert either. Jeff got the call during Garth Brook’s rendition of “Shout” – pretty much the loudest part of the concert with everyone in the audience jumping up and down yelling “shout”. Poor Jeff was huddled on the ground with a phone to his ear trying to hear the realtor.
The next day – Monday – our three other guests arrived via train from Boston. One of them – David – started his journey the day before from Tucson, AZ. Monday night we made ourselves snack packs for the inauguration and planned the next day.
We woke up early and prepared for our adventure. The outside temperature was about 20 degrees F but was expected to rise to about 32 degrees, although with 25 MPH gusts. We were prepared. I had on four layers and we brought toe warmer and hand warmer heat packs. We set out from the apartment at 6:30am. By that hour the Metro trains going into DC were expected to already be packed – especially by the time they got to our stop. As such, we decided to avoid the Metro altogether and walk to the mall. There were a few others on the bike path we took in, but we didn’t run into big crowds until we got to the Washington Monument. At that point the crowds were streaming towards the capitol with a sizeable group camped out on the high ground around the monument.
The yellow ticket entrance was on the north side of the capitol so we crossed the Mall and started walking up Madison Dr. For several blocks we were walking behind James Carville. Security was tight. They had the whole downtown area and mall cordoned off into sections making it a real pain in the arse to get from one section to another. We found this out firsthand. We made it to about the National Gallery of Art when we were turned back because the road was closed. We went back a couple blocks and tried to go North to no avail. Finally we found a checkpoint that got us into the parade area – of course we didn’t want to be in the parade area but we had to cross it because we apparently needed to be on the north side of Pennsylvania Ave. Of course, no one could give us a straight answer. We knew where we needed to be, but the security barricades where thwarting our attempts. None of the police we found seemed to know anything about how to get to various ticketed entrances. I guess that was understandable since they were from places like San Antonio and Detroit and probably didn’t know anything about the DC area. We got into the parade area but had to wait to cross Pennsylvania Ave. as they were only letting small groups at a time pass. Now that we were on the north side of Pennsylvania we figured we could just walk up to our ticket gate near the capitol. We thought wrong.
Again we ran into an impassable security barrier and had to turn around. We walked back a few blocks and saw another security checkpoint for people coming into the parade area from the north. It was our only way out to go north so we took it. There were thousands of people outside the checkpoint trying to get in so we were hoping we made the right choice by leaving because there was no way we’d be getting back in. We walked north a few more blocks and cut east again – hoping this time we could get to our checkpoint. A couple blocks down we had to push ourway through an intersection bottlenecked with confused ticket holders and one police officer with his car who wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. We forced our way through the crowd and finally found the line for yellow ticket holders near Union Station. We followed the line back looking for its start point. We walked and walked – there seemed to be no end to the line. After a bit we came to a spot where the line was wide as confused purple ticket holders were pushing through – here we just jumped in. It was now 9am – it had taken us 2.5 hours to do what should have taken 1.5 hours.
We waited in that yellow line for 2 hours before we finally got it. We didn’t have any problem getting through the security checkpoint (our 2rd that day), but they did take away Katie’s clementine and Jeff’s apple. As all Americans know, fruit is a national security risk. It should be restricted to locations such as Hollywood where, when it explodes in a 12 megaton nuclear blast (as fruit often does) it will not kill anyone important. They allowed the rest of our snack packs through so apparently Reece’s Pieces and granola bars are not a threat to national security.
We missed some of the interlude music, but were able to see the full inauguration. Despite having good tickets, we were still about 100 meters from the podium since the yellow standing room section was off to the side. We were able to see the speakers, but they were still pretty small. There was a jumbotron and speakers right in front of us that helped out. The actress Rosario Dawson was standing right next to us – our second brush with fame that day – although, I would have never known it if two of my party weren’t avid Us Weekly readers.
When they announced Barak Obama the crowd went wild, as expected. On the jumbotron they showed the crowd behind us on the mall. Everyone was violently waving an American flag. Wait a minute – where did they get those flags? I looked around our section. None of us had American flags. We must have been put in the “people against the waving of small American flags” section. After taking 4.5 hours to get to our section I was hoping for a kick-ass speech. It was ok, but nothing I remembered 5 minutes after it was over. The best speech of the day, which few people listened to because it was preceded by some crappy poem, was the Rev. Joseph Lowery’s benediction. His speech should have been the benediction and the poem.
“…we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right.”
It rhymes! Who can’t like that.
Getting out of the mall area was infinitely easier than getting in as after the inauguration the crowd took it upon themselves to tear down various sections of the fencing – most likely in frustration at getting in. After taking a few pictures in front of the capitol building we were able to take a straight-shot walk back to 14th street and home. The highway was closed to traffic so pedestrians had full use of the 14th street bridge.
We got back around 3pm and relaxed for an hour or show while re-watching some of the inauguration on TV. Some of our Boston guests let us in on an event I didn’t know about – the $2 menu at McCormick and Schmicks. We went there for dinner and I was able to get a burger and fries for $2 (and a couple $6 beers, which I’m sure is how they make their money, but still).
I calculated our walking that day to be about 11.5 miles. I slept well that night.
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