January 20: Silver Gate

Our tickets allowed us to enter the National Mall at one of four "Silver" gates, two on the north side and two on the south side of the mall. Since Union Station is north of the Mall, we tried to go to one of the north Silver Gates, but as we reached an enormous mass of people we were diverted. We got directions from a police officer and ended up moving with another huge group of people into a tunnel that we later realized led directly underneath the Mall. Turns out, the authorities wanted everyone to enter the Mall from the south...













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And then...

January 20: The Approach to DC

On Inauguration Day, the parking lot at the Shady Grove Metro station in Maryland opened at 3:30 AM and the first train departed for DC at 4 AM. Metro planned to run 17 consecutive hours of rush hour service that day and we had no idea what to expect when we arrived...

We got off the Metro at Union Station. When we made it above ground, the sun had not yet risen on the the Capitol.

January 19: The Tix

Janurary 19: Picking Up Our Tickets

Monday was the only day to pick up official Inauguration tickets in DC. All Congressman were given a designated number of tickets to give to constituents. We won our tickets in a lottery. As you can see, lots of other people were picking up tickets too!









We got to meet our Congressman, the honorable Peter DeFazio. He represents the 4th Congressional District and is Oregon's most senior member of Congress. He's also a super nice guy.

Janurary 19: Leaving NJ by Car

We left NJ at around 5am on January 19, 2009. The drive to Washington DC was just over 200 miles. In order to scout out our approach for Inauguration Day, we drove to Maryland to catch the Metro train. We parked at the Shady Grove stop, which is the furthest northwestern stop out of the District that you can get on Metro's Red line.

The Adventure Starts Tomorrow

We will begin our drive to Washington DC at 5am tomorrow morning. We are so happy to be converging on history! Yeah, us and about 3 million other people! Stories, pics and maybe some video evidence will be posted soon. Stay tuned.

Coming Soon!