Local gets once in a lifetime experience

Jamie Doran

Valley Press

Just listening to Paula Petri talk about her time in Washington D.C. to see President Barack Obama’s inauguration and you can tell that she has pretty much not stopped smiling since it happened.

“I’m still riding this inauguration high,” she said with a laugh. “It was just a really amazing experience.”

Petri and her son Chad traveled to Washington D.C. last week to attend President Barack Obama’s inauguration, after having booked plane tickets last summer, just knowing that he was going to win the election.

She said the whole experience was just awesome, even if she did have some trouble getting into the actual inauguration.

“It was pretty hectic getting in,” she said. “All ticket colors had a hard time getting, and I think it is because they just weren’t prepared for so many people, but they are investigating what  happened.”

After being turned away at one gate, Petri and her son made a beeline for another gate they heard was still open to let people in.

“I didn’t want to miss him take that oath for anything,” she said. “So we were running to get to a place to be able to see him sworn in and we were able to make it just in the nick of time, right before he was sworn in.”

Petri said that they were able to see Obama and the people on the steps of the Capitol, but they were pretty tiny.

“They all shrunk,” she said with a laugh. “Luckily there were jumbotrons all over the place, so we were able to watch it from that.”

She said just being in that area with so many people was absolutely incredible and she wouldn’t have traded the atmosphere for anything.

“The whole town was just electric,” she said. “It was crazy, I have never seen so many people.”

There were an estimated 2 million people on the National Mall to watch Obama’s swearing in and Petri said she was so impressed that there weren’t any incidents.

“According to the news there weren’t any arrests or incidents, which is amazing given the number of people, especially with the fact that there were a lot of disappointed people,” she said.

Disappointed in the fact, that while Petri and her son were lucky and made it into the inauguration, many others were turned away, or were not able to make it past security in enough time to catch Obama taking the oath of office.

“The people were just so wonderful,” she said. “I was so impressed.”

Petri and her son got lucky in another regard as well. They hadn’t intended on going to the parade, but managed to stumble across the very start of the route.

“We kind of thought that we might be at the beginning of the parade route, so we asked a police officer and he didn’t say anything, except to smile, so then we had a pretty good feeling we were in the right spot,” she said.

The parade was delayed after Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., fainted at a luncheon, and even though Petri and her son were cold and tired, she said it was worth the wait.

“We were right at the front of the boundary and had a bird’s eye view of the very start of the parade and Barack passed by in his car not 20 feet from where we were standing,” she said. “Chad and I were just waving like crazy at him and he was waving back. It was so cool and just pure luck that we were able to stumble up on it.”

Before the inauguration Petri and her son attended a free concert that she said was “really amazing.”

“We didn’t realize there were going to be all the speakers and celebrities that were there,” she said. “There were 750,000 people at the concert, and we thought that was a lot, but we didn’t know what we were in for until inauguration day.”

Petri, who had never been to Washington D.C. before, wanted to make sure she took in as many sights as possible. She said they went to all of the memorials and they had scheduled to go to the Smithsonian, but opted out after her son got ill.

“It was probably for the best, we were both really tired and we heard that the lines were just insane,” she said. “I plan on going back sometime when the weather is warmer and taking all of that in.”

Petri said another highlight of her visit was being able to meet with Sen. Jon Tester with her son and several members of the Serviceman Legal Defense Network.

“We met with him regarding the ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Policy’ and he was really great to talk to and visit with,” she said. “In fact the guys with the Defense Network were really impressed with how great of a senator he is and how amazing he was to talk to.”

Petri said she took tons of pictures of just about everything and the whole experience is something that she will never forget.

“The energy the entire week was just absolutely incredible,” she said. “It was a really great experience and something I will never forget. I’m so lucky that I was able to be a part of it.”