Obamapalooza (4) "No Cherry Blossoms Expected"

I woke to an inbox of full of early-morning photos from my family in DC.

They've been staying at a friend's apartment (thanks Liz!) just five miles -- a short metro ride -- from the White House. This morning, they were out the door by 5 am.

There was already a very long line of "Purple" ticket-holders waiting to get to their security checkpoint. My husband and 11-year-old got in line. My teen-agers have Blue tickets, so they headed to a different section. Here's the map that shows the color areas for the inauguration audience.



They waited for moonlight and sunlight to cross.



Eventually, the sunlight broke through. As my husband notes, no cherry blossoms are expected today.

Obamapalooza (3)

Is there anyone in the country who isn't watching the bliss-fest in DC? Every conversation I've had today in our little city of Middletown has come back -- again and again -- to this jubilant feeling of hope.

Down in DC, my family went to the reception for CT residents at Senator Chris Dodd's office. That's where they ran into Calvin Price -- the VP of community development for Middetown's own Liberty Bank.



They spent most of the day going to museums and concerts and milling around with a few hundred thousand other people in anticipation of tomorrow's events. They took in a concert at the National Museum of the Native American.




They checked out the preparations at the Mall: the Jumbotrons are working.




At the end of the afternoon, they went to a Connecticut-themed party at the Russell Senate Office Building -- and in a case of the "media reporting on the media", my teenagers were interviewed by the Hartford Courant's Washington reporter, Jesse Hamilton.




They plan to rise well before dawn and head to the Mall, since their tickets for the inauguration itself are first-come, first-served in the standing area.

Obamapalooza (2) "Like, a million Happy people."

The Middletown Eye's Official Count of Middletown Residents at Obamapalooza is now up to five. As my family rode the train from New York City to the Capitol, they ran into Holy Trinity's Maggie Minnick, also on her way to the events in DC.

It looks like our local folks were on the train right behind Obama's Whistle-stop. Just outside of Baltimore, they finally got to pass his vintage railcar, snapping photos wildly (which I've yet to see.)






That put them at Union Station before PE Obama's train arrived. So they got a quick photo with a surrogate instead.








Today (Sunday), they toured the city and took in the preparations. Lots of media and plenty of barricades.






Here's a shot of Blair House, where the Obama family is staying until Tuesday.








Mark and the kids were at the concert on the mall, which from their descriptions sounds more like a New Year's Eve party than a political event. I thought you'd like to hear what my teenagers had to say by cell-phone:


from my 14-year-old:
It's really exciting, even though nobody could see anything - we were all smushed together. Maybe the angry people just haven't arrived yet, but there are just all these happy people. Nobody is yelling or doing protests except for peace. At the convention in Denver there were all these people broadcasting about things they hate. It's not like that at all here -- it's so weird. It's like a million happy people.


from my 16-year-old:
Crazy! The crowd was a couple miles long -- ok, that might be an exaggeration. We couldn't see at all when Obama was speaking...but when the front of the crowd did something - like chanting -- or started dancing - it would spread really fast - the entire crowd was like an entity.


And that's today's postcard from the Inauguration. See you tomorrow.

Obamapalooza (1)

If you believe the news, there are 2 million people heading to DC for the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States.

I know of at least four.

Here they are at the New Haven train station, getting ready to board Amtrak -- with homework in tow. After all: Taking mass transit is the new patriotism.*

*that's what Mayor Hickenlooper of Denver says here.