Bonnie and Braydon Getting to Inauguration Day

Getting to the Mall took some perserverence and quite literally strong stomachs. Both of us were nearly ill (Bonnie on the train--I didn't mention that I am clausterphobic to Jill and Todd until we were on the train so as to not worry them...lots of self-talk...you can do it you can do it)--I only had to take a knee twice to keep from passing out. Braydon told us after we left the Metro station "You know how your mouth fills up with spit right before you puke? Yea. That happened like 10 times when we were in that station."

We knew making it to the ceremony without a hitch would be too good to be true. It started out easy when we walked up to the Metro platform and got on the train that had just pulled up and we made it to our exit station within 20 minutes. We exited the train to a station filled with thousands of people smashed together and not moving. The trains kept arriving and people kept pouring into the station faster than they were letting us exit. It took over an hour to get out and it was quite a tense hour as people were nervous, not understanding why they wouldn't just open the gates and leave them open (the gates would be opened for about 2 minutes and then closed for 5). There was some levity as the Metro staff giving people directions would state a set of directions then say, "Can we do this?" and the entire station shouted in reply, "YES WE CAN!"

Once we were out of the station it was smooth sailing along with a sea of people through the streets and to the Mall. Imagine our surprise, as we did not leave at 3:00 AM like many, that when we arrived on the Mall there was plenty of space right near the Washington Monument and we had a fantastic view of the Captiol plus a jumbotron.