Ms. Edwards and Ms. Wood decided to drive down the day before the event and stay over night at a friend of Ms. Wood. We rented a car and drove....and drove....and drove....down to DC. We got stuck in traffic around New York City.
We arrived in DC around 7 PM and tried to return the car to Union Station. We were then going to get onto the metro and take a ride to Ms. Wood's friends. She lives out the city near the cathedral. Well....the plan didn't work out very well. Union Station was closed down and it was impossible to even get the car close to finding out. There were road blocks all over the place. Because so many different police officers were from out of the area they weren't any help with directions or suggestions as to how to get to a different location or entrance. Ms. Wood had to ask five people before she discovered that Union Station was closed. We had to drive the Reagan National and leave the car there. We took the Metro from Reagan to the Cathedral area of Virginia.
We spent the night in Virginia and got up early and headed back to Reagan National to meet Mr. Rowley. The four or us (Mr. Rowley, Ms. Edwards, Ms. Wood and myself) caught a ride on the metro into Washington. The metro ride in was extremely crowded. Everyone was liked sardines standing in the metro. I was so happy to be in the backpack.
After we got off the metro we headed to the blue section. This was in the area of the the Native American museum. We followed the crowd and stood in line for over an hour in a half. We circled one of the extremely large buildings with everyone else who had tickets for the blue sections.
We stood in line for over an hour and half and was within sight of our gate. The Inauguration had already started and we were still working our way to the entrance where we would have our bags checked. They ended up closing the gate because the crowd started pushing to get through the gate. We ended up leaving the area and walking around some to see if we could get a view from a different location. We ended up near the Native American museum and were able to hear the conclusion of President Obama's speech and the ending of the ceremony.
After the ceremony was over we started making our way out of the mall area. The only problem was that everyone else who was there had the exact same idea. Unlike other times when we have visited the mall area of Washington DC there were fences up everywhere that made it impossible to get out. We had to follow the crowd like cattle looking for the one gate that would lead us out of the area. We eventually made it out.
Mr. Rowley decided to to head back to the airport and wait until his flight left. He went and stood in line at one of the metros for over an hour trying to get out. Ms. Wood, Ms. Edwards and I decided to walk around a little and try and get over to one of their favorite t-shirt stores in the area. BIG BIG BIG mistake.
We ended up getting lost in DC and couldn't find our way out.....There were no taxi's and the buses were very limited. We ended up walking around for three hours. Every metro station that we came to had HUGE lines and we later learned that the Metro stations were actually shut down for a part of the day due to all the heavy traffic.
Thank goodness Ms. Wood had a friend down in DC. She ended up picking us up around Dupont Circle and driving us all the way to the airport in Baltimore Maryland. Without her help we would have missed our plane home and wouldn't have made it back to school the next day to tell all the students about.
Here is a picture of me hanging out on the back of the rental car. Ms. Wood's mother made my hat for me. Ms. Wood and Ms. Edwards had matching hats as well. It made it easier for us all to stay together while in DC.
I was extremely happy to see home. DC during the Inauguration is NO Fun....but the day was well worth it....now.
