Obama's Final Rally

Last night Obama's final rally of the campain was at the Prince William County Fairgrounds in Manassas, VA. This is 12 miles from my house so I knew that I had to go! It appears that it is very likley that Obama will win and be the new president and being a part of his final rally was very exciting!
Virginia is one of the big battleground states in the election and I have heard it rumored that Prince William County is key to who wins the state, I'm not sure how true that is, but Obama's choice in his location for his last rally seems to support that!

The program was scheduled to start at 9:00pm and the gates opened at 5:00. I had a parent teacher conference at school until 4:15 so my plan was to leave as soon as I could - lucky for me the parents all showed up early, we talked, I ushered them out the door and skedaddled home.

After stopping at home to change clothes, stopping for gas, and stopping to grab some dinner, I made my way over to the fairgrounds. About 2 miles away the traffic started. We were inching along for more than 2 hours and we were a mere 2 miles from the fairgrounds! It was 6:00 when got in line, and it was 8 when I parked!

Now you have to know that the Prince William County Fairgrounds is not a large venue. It is located on a very small 2 lane road. It is not set up for large crowds of people. I don't think there has ever been an event this big there!

I saw lots of people walking so I asked where they had parked, they'd parked in a subdivison just down the road. I knew that I was close enough to walk but I was a bit aprehensive about parking in a subdivison or right on the road, also I didn't want to walk back in the dark - we are out in the country here and it's dark - well I need not have worried, there were so many people that there was no getting lost, or mugged! At the next opportunity, 30 more mins of sitting in traffic, I turned around and found a spot deep in this subdivison and set out on foot. I covered the same ground on foot in 15 mins that had just taken me 30 mins in the car! There were lots of people walking and we were all chatting with each other and having a good time!

Once I got to the fairgrounds (I had to walk about a mile), I first found the ladies room and stood in line. I met a nice gal and her friend who was an exhange student from Australia, we had a nice chat, then I made my way into the rally area it's self.

They had set up the stage at the bottom of a hill and the whole hill was filled with people. I attempted to take some pictures, the big lights made it very hard but hopefully you can get the idea.....

I simply could not believe the number of people there. I'm not sure how many people were actually there, one of the VA congressmen said it was 80,000, Obama said it was 100,000, and the local news story said it was "a massive crowd estimated at 50,000 people." Now lets just hope they aren't counting the election results like this.

It was after 10 before Obama got there, apparently he was stuck in traffic (ha!). He talked about almost everything - the economy, the war, education, voting. I got some videos of his speech that really captured the feeling of the evening, however YouTube is taking forever to load them so I'll post them in a different post.

He said a lot of stuff that I really liked, of course that was his goal - to get us to vote for him. I esp like his plans for education and his plan to provide tax cuts to the working class as he said, "teachers, police officers, fire fighters, even plumbers."

I was way in the back so was taking pictures with thr 48x digital zoom on my camera - this is the best one, most of my pics remind me of ultrasound pictures, you need deciphering to know what it is! hmmmm......interesting analogy there!

Obama spoke for about 45 mins and when he was done all those tens of thousands of people began their exodus from the fairgrounds. It was aa crush of people all cheering, "Ob-a-ma, Ob-a-ma, Ob-a-ma!" and "Yes we can!" Obama had also told a story which let to a new call and response cheer: "Fired up?" "Ready to go" All were heard as we all made our way out of the fairgrounds.

At several points in the path out there was a fence with a small gate that we all had to funnel through. It was quite "cozy" as we all pushed through. Let's just say personal space was non-exsistent. I'm not sure I have ever been that "up close and personal" with strangers! Everyone was calm, under control and patient so it was all good!

When we finally made our way to the street, everyone was lined up along both sides....the motorcade was coming! Hard to photograph in the dark.....

I made my way back to the car surrounded my the thousands of people who also parked far out. When I got back to road where I'd spent 2 hours sitting in traffic I saw that there were cars parked everywhere - in the median, on the bike path that goes along the road, there were 2 subdivisons along the road and every inch of parking in there was taken.

I got back to the car at midnight and was home by 12:30.

It was an amazing experience to be a part of this historical rally!

Now I think it's time for a nap!

Be on the lookout for videos....when YouTube loads them, I'll post them in a seperate post.