ajlovestolose.com

I was there.

I was there where history was made.

Grant Park. Chicago, Illinois. November 4th, 2008.

All day downtown Chicago was electric. The loop shut down at 3pm so those who wanted to go home before the masses arrived could.

A few of my co-workers and I stayed in the office, got pizza and beer and chilled watching the early returns before heading the few blocks to the park.

About 7pm, we saw the hoards of people arriving to turn in their tickets, so those that happened to be one of the “chosen” ones, left to begin the treck to the bag check.

[caption id="attachment_515" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="The Ticketless"][/caption]

The two of us who were not lucky enough to get tickets, waited for a few other friends to join us and then headed out.

Soon we were in a crush of people. Men and women of every race and age, kids, babies…

[caption id="attachment_518" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="The crush of people"][/caption]

I realized soon that cell service would be spotty at best, and forget about supposed “G3″ internet service. I called my mom and asked her to leave me messages or try to call me as returns came in.

As we went through the bag check (yep, even for people without actual tickets- I was extrememly happy with the security – I got a call – Obama won PA. I screamed out “WE WON PENNSLYVANIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” and the crowd went fricking wild.

I totally shared some history with the Chicago masses – I was so proud.

We sat in front of a big screen and watched as CNN reported the returns.

• When Iowa (my home state for 25 of my young years) came back blue, I was so proud.
• When Ohio went blue, the crowd went wild!
• At 10pm CST, when they told the world that Obama would be the next POTUS, it was amazing - the crowd began jumping and hugging everyone around them all while screaming at the top of their lungs.
• There were lots of tears of joy - mine came during Obama’s acceptance speech- I felt like he was speaking directly to me.

[caption id="attachment_519" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="YES WE DID!"][/caption]

After a history walk on the closed Michigan Avenue back to my office in a sea of people to gather my belongings and try to get home (most of my co-workers were staying overnight at the office, why I didn’t I will explain in a minute) I turned around and actually could not see an end of people… I am a bad judge of count, but it seemed like WAY more than 250,000 people in attendance.

[caption id="attachment_516" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="A friend and I during the walk back from the Rally"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_520" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="President-Elect Obama"][/caption]

Because I had to be in a cab to the airport at 5AM, I had to get home to get my luggage and feed the cat. I made it home by 1AM, and was in bed by 2:30am. I “woke up” at 4:30am, and was in a cab to O’Hare by 5. I landed in Atlanta at 10, and was in meetings by 11a. I checked into my hotel room at 6:30p after a FULL day of meetings (all introducing me to my new role in my organization) and was on the phone with friends and my mom until about 10pm.

I WAS SO TIRED I COULD NOT MAKE A SENTENCE CORRECTLY. I slept well.

I was up again in the morning and was in back to back meetings for 9 full hours. It was another long day, but I was able to get in 40 minutes of working out on the treadmill and got in dinner before heading back to the hotel for S L E E P.

Historic night. I would not have missed it for a million dollars. Even though I was so frickin tired the next two days.