VolcanoJen's Blue-Ticket-To-Nowhere Inauguration Adventure - Now, With Photos!!!

VolcanoJen

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Sat Jan-24-09 02:15 PM
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VolcanoJen's Blue-Ticket-To-Nowhere Inauguration Adventure - Now, With Photos!!!

Edited on Sat Jan-24-09 03:13 PM by VolcanoJen

Hello everyone,

I realize it's a few days late, but here's the scoop on my Inauguration Day (Mis)Adventure!!

I was one of the Blue-ticketed people who never made it into the Inauguration Ceremony, or, as we like to call it, The Blue Ball Ticket To Nowhere! What a sad and unorganized mess that was. Just massive crowds, no security, no directions, no police presence, no nuthin'. We arrived at the Blue security entrance at 8:30 and waited patiently for three hours in the cold, packed in like penguins, moving forward toward the entrance maybe a few inches every fifteen minutes. Spirits remained high, though, and we chanted "Keep Hope Alive!" and "What's Going On!" at various intervals. At times, we helped clear paths and lift wheelchairs carrying disabled veterans up and out of the massive crowd; we even cleared a path so Tammy Duckworth could escape the masses. Around 11:30, however, the "line" broke down and the thousands behind us surged forward, scattering everyone else in all sorts of directions. In the crowd push, I ended up swept up to the left and face-planted into a tree. :o

Of course, realizing now we weren't going to see the Inauguration at all, and quite weary of crowds, we high-tailed it up and out of there, standing on 2nd Street behind the Capitol just as the cannon fire went off. Realizing Obama had finally just become President, we hugged and cried with strangers on the street, most of them dejected ticket-holders.

Following that, we were lucky enough to beat the crowd back up to Union Station and ducked into The Dubliner (where "Morning Joe" was filming all week) to lift a pint and a whiskey just in time to see Bush's helicopter lift off, and later, the take-off of FORMER (!!!) Air Force One. It was there that we first met and learned about our Brethren in Inauguration Solidarity, the Purple People stuck in "The Purple Ticket Tunnel of Doom," since the bar was packed with them, as well. They actually seem to have had it worse than we "Blue People" did. We joined in hearty choruses of "Na Na Hey Hey" and "There's No One More Irish Than Barack Obama." (short YouTube here, that's me from the side wearing the stars-n-stripes scarf!)

All in all, it was an absolute blast, and even though we were sorely disappointed to have had tickets and yet saw nothing, I'd still do it over again. It is a real testament to the character and jovial nature of the thousands of us in "line" that nothing awful happened. And celebrating on the street just yards away and later at an Irish bar packed with revelers? Well, that part didn't suck at all.

Here are some whacky pix of the madness and frivolity (all photos taken by Jim Saul, partner-in-Inaug-Shenanigans-Disappointment-Guiness-Lifting-Jameson Toasting-and-Patience; thank you, Jim!! Any times on photos are one hour off due to not resetting the timestamp):

Crowds arriving at Union Station, just before 8:00 am:

Blue "Line" started and continued here:

2nd Street and East Capitol as the cannons went off
(also note the color-coded ticket signage in background; that's about all the signage there was, sadly):

"Na Na, Hey Hey" and "There's No One As Irish As Barack Obama" at The Dubliner!!

After the party... the crowd at Union Station, waiting to catch our trains back:

And finally... Our now-infamous "Blue Ball" tickets, just silly souvenirs, superimposed over a satellite photo of the crowds: