I am trying to remember where I left off on my last post. I know I didn't say too much. I guess I will just spill the whole story now. And try to add some pictures.
We got into Dulles on Monday night and got our rental car. It was a 2-1/2 hour drive to Dover Air Force Base. We went through Virginia, Maryland, DC, and Delaware on this trip. The room was nice. We got in and then went out to dinner. We finally went to bed about midnight.
Our wake-up call was at 0600. Although I have to admit that neither of us slept much. We left at 0630 to make the drive up to Wilmington, DE. Our train left at 0751 and was due in to Union Station at 0925. We had a delay though and had to stop in Baltimore for a medical emergency. We finally got to Union Station about 0945. We then walked towards the Purple Gate to try to find the person who had our tickets.
Now this was probably the worst part of the trip. We finally met Don at the fence because he was already in the gate. We were stuck in this massive crowd of people and had one situation where I thought I was going to get crushed because people got frantic. Everyone finally calmed down. We stayed along the fence line and the cops opened up another part of the fence and we got in. We then made our way to as far forward as we could. The electricity in that crowd was so amazing. There is no way to describe what the inauguration itself was like. Here are a few pictures.
When the Inauguration was over, we walked around for what seemed like a long time and long distance. Don finally found a nice seafood restaurant to eat at and warm up! We then walked around some more and got some t-shirts.
Don and Susan left after a bit and it was just the two of us wandering around DC. There were millions of people but everyone was very nice and in great spirits! Our train back wasn't scheduled until 2200 so we decided to go to Hard Rock to warm up some more. 
The high that day was 28 degrees. After Hard Rock we walked down to Pennsylvania Avenue to watch the parade. We didn't see the Obamas as they had already been by. Which helped because there were not so many people there anymore. Here are some pictures of the parade. 
At about 1900 we just couldn't take the cold anymore and headed to Union Station where we hung out until our train arrived. We finally got back to our hotel room at 0100 and we were totally exhausted from the walking and the cold. We estimate that we probably walked about 5 miles that day.
We slept in later than anticipated on Wednesday. We didn't get into DC until around 1300. But we were able to see a few of the sites. Again there were many people and it made things a bit difficult. Here are some pix of Wednesday.
We had high hopes of going to the beaches on Thursday before we left, but we were just too danged tired. We walked probably another 5 to 6 miles on Wednesday. At least it was warmer Wednesday - a high of 33 that day. We finally made it to the airport and caught our flight home. We ended up sitting next to a great young lady who we spoke with throughout the entire flight. Come to find out she is the granddaughter of Cesar Chavez! I plan on keeping in touch with her. She will be out in Phoenix in March for a dinner dedicated to Cesar and said we should attend. I'm looking forward to having the chance to get to know her better.
That sums it up for now. I am going to go lie down. Came home with a cold and think it has developed into an ear infection.
