What a Day! What the experience was like.....

One Inauguration experience~

Subject: What a Day!
Date: Wednesday, January 21, 2009, 10:55 AM

Hey y'all, I did it. I made it.

It was an beautiful experience.
I couldn't half see or hear, but it was truly earthshaking. People screamed, laughed, cried, hugged, cried.... The crowds were humongous but everyone was OK with it. There was confusion, way too many people, and we just shook it off. I couldn't even get to my ticketed section after standing in line for 5 hours. So what. We were witnessing the history we had worked for.

I and I got there about 5:30 am and there were already hundreds of thousands of people. She headed toward her section and I headed toward mine to meet my boss and company. I was sent in the wrong direction, back in the wrong direction, smehwere else in the wrong direction (that was about 2 extra miles of walking).

When I finally got to the right line (which was in an underground freeway tunnel that had been closed to traffic), it was about 6:30 am. Some man joined me in leading cheers, screams, songs, waves, etc so we wouldn't freeze or think about how long we had been in that damn tunnel. After three hours we deteriorated into singing "Row, Row, Row your Boat".There were only about 1000 people in front of me when I first arrived in the tunnel. By the time we saw daylight at the other end, it was after 11 am. There were at least 10-15,000 people behind me. Then my seating section was closed, so we dashed for another section. The police let us in because they could see that everyone was desperate.

We strained to see through the trees. We listened on radio and at the loudspeakers. Then the 21 gun salute went off and we knew we were in. MY President officially became the United States ' President. It took about 3 hours for me to get back through the security lines, the parade route and the crowds and make my hike back home. Tired and exhausted, and my bad knees killing me, I still couldn't sit still

So I watched the whole ceremony on television again and again.I'm going to send some photos soon, but don't look for award winning photojournalism. I kept getting caught up in the moment and kept forgetting to take photos. So that's my quick update. I wish all of you could have joined me. I really do a fairly good imitation of the Village People's YMCA!!!

Love you!
K