Inuaguration Trip Monday

  today's agenda: drop van at Aleix's, CoC/Inauguration Tweetup, Slate Political Gabfest live... 9:58 AM Jan 19th

We checked out of the hotel and drove toward Aleix's place.  Instead of dropping the van off at Aleix's and getting a ride to the metro, we decided to drive to Rosslyn and park there.  Then we took a train into the city.

Obama look-a-like on the metro getting lots of attention 12:15 PM Jan 19th

saw an eagle swoop in and land in a tree during the drive this morning 12:25 PM Jan 19th

We made our way to the Hawk and Dove restaurant for the CoC/Inauguration Tweetup.  We met online friend GKB and his wife Sara as well as several other ACU folks there (like Tanya, Brandon, Matt; still bummed that Freeman and Stanley bailed on the trip).  The restaurant was crowded, so we packed in as many of us as we could around a few small tables.  Here are a couple photos:

Most of those folks were planning to meet Shaun Casey for dinner, but we had other plans (Slate's Political Gabfest live).  Casey is a graduate of ACU who now teaches at Wesley Theological Seminary in D.C.  He was Obama's evangelical outreach coordinator during the campaign.  We decided to make our way to the Mt. Vernon United Methodist Church to hear Shaun Casey's symposium talk "The Wisdom of Serpents: Christians and the Obama Administration."  A new friend from the Tweetup (Matt Lowe) went with us.  We tried to get on a nearby subway, but the lines were enormous.  There were also huge lines as people were trying to pick up their inauguration tickets.  That's when we realized what a big favor Fitz had done for us by picking up our inauguration tickets from Dave Camp's office on Friday.  We ended up hoofing it over to the church, arriving just in time for Casey's talk.

listening to Shaun Casey at Mt Vernon UMC 2:53 PM Jan 19th

After Casey's talk, we walked around a bit and found the metro stop for the trip back to Rosslyn after the Gabfest.

in line for Slate political gabfest 4:38 PM Jan 19th

Here are a couple of photos from inside the synagogue were the live Gabfest (a political podcast that we listen to) event was held:

After the Gabfest we took the metro back to Rosslyn and drove to Aleix and Libby's house.  It had been nearly twenty years since I'd seen Aleix, so it was great catching up with him and meeting his wife and kids.  They're political insiders, so it was also great fun talking politics over order-in Italian dinner!  We went to bed kind of late considering the early alarm we set for the next morning.