No One From Virginia Going to Inauguration
Breathe easy, inauguration planners: No one from Virginia is going. A sample of shoppers at Potomac Yard Retail Center in Alexandria and outdoors enthusiasts at Roosevelt Island failed to yield a single resident of the Old Dominion interested in attending the inauguration of America's 44th president.
"It's nothing political; it's mostly logistical," says Frank Willcoxon of Old Town, who was planning to walk to the celebration with his wife but decided that the restrictions on bags would make a long day out difficult. "I'm gonna be watching on TV," said a woman who declined to give her name but who named two factors that would keep her away: "It's cold and my daughter has asthma."
The cold was apparently keeping folks away from Roosevelt Island today, too–after waiting in vain in the parking lot for 10 minutes with a 4-year-old concerned that we weren't seeing enough robots, we took a walk across the river, which was mostly frozen. If you paused long enough on the bridge–say, to take a picture of the ice with your cell phone–you could hear the ice cracking punctuated by the sounds of a male and female cardinal looking for food on the mainland.
My son decided that he would like to have two pets: a dog and a cardinal, and then we got in the car and left.
6:02 pm
I think (though I myself might be confused) that part of the problem is that people believe the security restrictions cover more than they do. My understanding from the maps and info I've seen is that the bag restriction applies only to the ticketed area near the Capitol and to the parade route (as well as to the Lincoln Memorial concert on Sunday). If you're just watching on the Mall outside the ticketed area there's no restriction. Anyone seen anything different?