Manassas Madness

See these people? These are my friends (I'm the doofy looking one holding the sign). We made a trek to Manassas, Va. last night for Obama's last rally of his campaign. It was a rough road and my poor little vocal chords are paying for it today, but I'm so glad we were crazy enough to attempt this. 

Basically, we set out around 4:00, because Brian (tall guy in the back) used to live in Manassas and knows the ins and outs of NoVa traffic. (I do too, I just pretend that part of the country doesn't exist) Smooth sailing until exactly twelve miles away from the site of the rally. We sat in traffic for two hours waiting to go twelve miles. Between mumblings of how much I hate Northern Virginia and yelps of, "can we drive? YES WE CAN!" we weaved our way to Manassas. The cops there failed to mention anything about parking and I was lucky to have a friend in Manassas from my Wolf Trap intern days last summer. She let us park at her house and walk to the fair grounds. 

From there, we proceeded to fight our way to a place where we couldn't really see unless we were on Adam's shoulders and the junior senator was an hour and a half late. He blamed Dulles, too, which is nice because I blame Dulles for most of the problems in my life even if the area isn't at fault. He did his campaign bit, told us a story and talked for a little about how John McCain has been an excellent opponent and was classy enough to offer condolences about Obama's grandmother. He got the crowd all riled up one more time and headed back to Chicago to be with his family. 

I couldn't believe I was standing amongst the crowd that attended Obama's last rally in his campaign less than 24 hours before one of the most historic elections this country has seen. It was a truly incredible thing. 

One more thing before I leave you for coffee and democracy (Go vote today, kiddies): 

Have you ever seen somewhere near 80,000 people in one place? It's a pretty incredible thing. You don't see race or income or gender...you just see people. Neat, huh? 

Happy (hopefully) Election Day. Whatever choice you make, make it for the right reasons.