I guess the estimates have the crowd at around 80,000 people. It was massive, I can tell you that. Despite getting there at around 1:45 pm, I ended up in the overflow area. Here's a picture I took shortly before the rally started of the overflow area. I simply stuck my cell phone up high and pointed it backwards. It's important to note that behind us is the lake (as in Erie, it's a big enough one to just call the lake), so there was pretty much no more room in the overflow area.
It was awesome and inspiring. Barack Obama is an awesome speech. Halfway through his speech, it started to sprinkle. Everyone stayed. I did too, though I had a moment of oh, gosh, is it bad to keep my seven week old out in this? But, my quick thought was - I was wearing him, his legs and arms were tucked in and he had a hood on his outfit, so I put his hood over his head and he stayed dry and toasty. :) And, um, how was I supposed to get out of that crowd? Better, in my opinion to wait.
The diversity was great. There were old, young, black, white, asian - well, just about everyone. Awesome that so many people are getting out this year. I saw many parents with children. The ones with strollers I felt bad - it certainly wasn't easy to navigate a stroller with that many people down there. I was glad that I was wearing my baby.
I rode the Rapid into Cleveland, on my way back, I needed change, so I stood in line to get change for my $10 bill. A mom behind me and her son commented on little Josh and were making small talk - guess what the son's name was? Joshua. :) It was his first Presidential election at 19 and he was very excited to tell me that he had early voted for Barack Obama. :)
People were very nice to me - mainly because of Josh, I'm sure. :) There were a group of ladies, probably in their early 50's who were near me in the crowd, when people were trying to barge through, like the drunken Browns fans who were clearly trying to stir up trouble, were trying to shove through, they were very mother hen over us to make sure that we didn't get shoved.
1 comment:
That would have been great. I already voted a couple of weeks ago. They're giving us the whole day off tomorrow so I'm going to be glued to my television set watching the outcome of the election. Mom
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