I went, I saw, I rallied on the mall! Part I, the journey

I am finally rested enough to talk about my exciting grand adventure to D.C. I am sorry to start this off by saying it was a sh*t storm in this country last night so now we need to start digging ourselves out from under it. I blame the Dems for not getting much done while they were "in charge", but I also blame the country for giving the keys back to the asswipes who wrecked the country while they were in charge. In the words of Tim Gunn, make it work people.

Off the podium, now we can begin.

The minute Stewart and Colbert announced they were holding a rally on the mall, I announced I would be there. I wasn't sure what the message/purpose of the rally/rallies was, but I knew I would be there. When I informed the roomie that I was going, he was quick to jump on the train for the ride. No pun intended, we actually took the Amtrak train to D.C. Dean booked a sleeper so I just had to pay for my train fare. Apparently, when you book a sleeper, your meals are included. The secret is to find the sleeper lounge in the Amtrak station so you will get special boarding priority and so you can book a reservation for your first meal in the dining car. The food was pretty good, but because we were not the first in line for breakfast, they ran out of food and we had to wait for first seating at lunch.

The train was FULL of folks attending the rally so a good time was had by all. The compartment itself was smaller then I thought but was roomy enough, after you settled in, to be quite comfortable. Dean had said he wanted the top bunk, but upon entry it was clear that; a) he wouldn't fit, b) there was no window, c) there was no way in hell he would have fit. There are bathrooms in the hall and they have a shower in them. Yeah, good luck with that. I had already planned ahead by taking a shower right before I left for the train. The bed was very narrow and not bad. The top bunk dropped down and the two facing seats fold down to form the bottom bunk. Tip to the traveler, ask for extra pillows! In case you were wondering, they come by your roomette and put your beds together for you and then come back in the morning and fold them back up.

We were 2.5 hours late into D.C. due to an accident on the tracks from a prior train. No clue where this was, it was like midnight in the middle of nowhere. We pulled into Union Station in D.C. and were able to take the Metro to Silver Spring, MD, to our hotel. While a part of me was sad to be so far from the mall, it was nice to get away from the madness to a quiet place at the end of the day.

Tomorrow, the rally.