Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear

On the steps of the National Gallery looking back towards the Washington Monument

Looking out at the Mall with the stage up and to our left

Nice to sit down

Sandy

Looking back towards the Monument

The sea of humanity

I went to the Mall!!!! Sandy and I drove to Metro at New Carrollton thinking, because it was the start of the line, we would get seats. But it was not to be. Thousands of folks were standing in very long lines just to board the trains! Undaunted we decided to drive into DC and enter the "back" way through Georgetown. Once over the bridge we quickly found a parking space in an open lot off M Street and hurried to find a taxi. With no taxi fairy to help us out we arrived, forty five minutes later, on foot at the HUGE celebration of tolerance and sanity engulfing the Washington Mall. The crowd was extremely good-natured and exhibited some of the funniest and clever signs I'd ever seen. A Christine O'Donnell impersonator in black suit and pearls along with her handler exhibiting an "ODonnell for Senate" sign stood next to a man in a giant penis suit - if it can be called that - and had their pictures taken! And this was just one of many funny groupings that we encountered...Sometimes we had to figure out just what the signs meant. Penis man for example was, according to a nice couple from Illinois that we met, a possible reference to O'Donnell' s fixation on the repudiation of masturbation! Well....sounds right to me. :)

After slowly, and I mean very slowly, negotiating the moving morass of folks headed north to the Capitol we decide to push our way onto the steps of the National Gallery in order to check out the scene from a somewhat lofty height. And what a scene it was. While we couldn't see much, the Jumbotrons were partially hidden by trees, we could see the vastness of the crowd. It was a stirring sight! Our afternoon ended with a tasty treat at the Gallery's small ice cream and coffee bar and then we limped back to Georgetown passing the White House which I had never seen before coercing a taxi driver from Virginia to take us the last few blocks to Georgetown. M Street was awash with revelers for Halloween and we had to inch our way slowly back to our parking lot. A very happy, fun and exhausting day!

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert put on a wonderful show, and, although I had to check most of it out on the TV - I had set the DVR before I left home that morning - I was so happy to have been there, at the Mall, for this wonderful and iconic event. It was so good to be reminded that there were many, many other people from around the country who were not angry tea baggers and who could air their differences without spitting, vilifying or stomping on someone's head!