A Horseshoe Firmly Lodged Up One's Behind

As my friend Carrie put it, we have a horseshoe firmly lodged up our a$$es. What does that mean? We can't believe our unbelievable level of luck today. We're in DC for Inauguration, and today (Monday) we PLANNED to do some sightseeing and see Oprah - kudos to Carrie for coming through with tickets! Our plan was to drive in to DC super early, park at the Kennedy Center, do some sightseeing, go to the show, and head back to the house (staying with friends).

The day didn't actually start out like that. We both messed up our alarm clocks and woke up an hour late. Knowing it'd take about 1.25-1.5 hours to get into central DC with traffic, perhaps we'd be cutting it close and maybe have a small window to see monuments first. However, when we left the house there was NO traffic into DC. Nada. 35 minutes from door to parking garage. We got a rock star spot right at the front of the exit of the garage so we could dart right out. The plan was dress in jeans and sneakers, walk around, then come back to the car to change into nice clothes for the show. The Kennedy Center is right next to the Watergate complex, so Carrie took a fun pic of me doing the double-V sign out front. :) It's also across the street from the Saudi Embassy, so I snuck in a pic for friends.

We walked through Georgetown toward the White House to try to get some pictures. We wanted Starbucks, found one exactly when the craving hit, and this is when timing really worked for us. After we got our drinks, we walked down 17th Street and saw a small crowd of people at a cross street. We stopped and saw that we were looking at the Blair House where the First Family-Elect were staying. The Secret Service had the street blocked off, so we stopped to get a couple pictures from the end of the block. As I took my camera out, some cars came our direction and we quickly noticed that it was THE motorcade! We watched the beastly black car pass right in front of us, looked into the window, and saw Obama staring back!! My camera snapped away furiously, and Carrie and I turned to each other with jaws open. Did we just see our soon-to-be president?!

We walked down the next block toward the South Lawn, and the street just south of it was open to pedestrians. As we meandered past security, we came around a turn and saw the White House in front of our eyes. We stopped for another photo-op, and swapped photo-taking with a kind stranger. From there we walked down to the Mall, saw the Washington Monument, the WWII memorial, walked along the Reflecting Pool, over to the Vietnam Memorial, around the side of the Lincoln Memorial, snapped a picture of the CNN Chicago transmission truck, then walked back to the Kennedy Center. We changed and headed into line.

In the Kennedy Center, we lined up to take our seats. They filled up fast and we ended up in the balcony. I won't complain about the seats that were partially obstructed by a camera crane, but if we stood or sat on the edges of our seats, we could see fine. Oprah's show a star-studded event, with Aston Kutcher and Demi Moore as the first guests. In the audience was Maria Shriver, Emmett Smith, Joe Biden's mom, Bebe Wayans, Glenn Close, Debbie Allen, and Tom Joyner. The special guest were Joe and Jill Biden! It was great to see them, as I missed them on Election Night, and they were very gracious. Jill said something that promptly hit the newswire and had the entire audience in a flutter. Next, David Foster led a medly with Will.I.Am, Faith Hill, Seal, and Mary J Blige. A fantastic show!

Traffic out of the parking garage was non-existent and we zipped right out. Drove over to Capitol Hill to visit the Inauguration store, but couldn't find parking, streets were starting to close, so we headed back to Manassas, in no time.

We couldn't have possibly asked for a better day, gone better than planned!