Inauguration Day

The U.S. Presidential Inaugural occurs every four years, but January 20, 2009 was inarguably a bit different then prior events. Fortunately for me, I was once again back in the U.S. in January, which enabled me to sneak in a trip to the nation's capital for Inauguration Day. I flew into DC from Phoenix where I'd attended the annual AMS meeting and landed at Washington National where outdoor temperatures were a chilly 12F (-11C).

Scott and Katie were kind enough to put me up for a few days, and one of the first tasks was to ensure we had sufficient cold-weather gear to survive several hours of exposure on the Mall. A visit to REI provided the first tangible evidence that a large number of people were planning on attending the Inauguration, as REI was packed full of people and hats, gloves, and long-underwear were all in short supply. On Sunday the 18th, we headed down to the mall to check out the Lincoln Memorial Inauguration Concert. However, we arrived a bit late to get into the secure area and thus had to be satisfied with a distant view of a jumbotron from outside the perimeter. The day also revealed that while Metro services might be adequate for getting into DC, the system was totally overwhelmed after events finished, forcing us to walk back across the Potomac into Virginia.

On the big day, we awoke at 5:00am, were out the door at 6:00am and managed to be on the Mall by about 7:30am. This left us with just just four hours to wait in freezing conditions until the beginning of the ceremony. We managed, however, to cope with the cold, and though we were probably a good mile away from the Capitol building we can still claim to be among the 1.5 million who were "there". After the swearing-in, however, we had another adventure trying to escape from DC, ultimately making our way again to the 14th street bridge and using our feet to get back home. We spent the rest of the day resting, getting warm and watching the Inaugural parade on TV.

And to top off the whole trip, I managed to hitch a ride back to Australia aboard one of Qantas' new A380s. Yes - it's a very large plane.