Blogs:
January 17, 2009
January 18, 2009
January 19, 2009
January 20, 2009
January 22, 2009
January 22nd 2009: 2:08 AM

January 17, 2009 - 7:42pm
Somewhere in Mississippi.

Good Evening! My name is Megan Bryant and I am the president of the Political Science Junior Fellows. First of all I would like to mention I am the only lady on the trip with four guys. Some may call me lucky but they don’t know the guys. Nonetheless, we are all looking forward to this rewarding experience. One of our organization’s objectives is education and we have the opportunity to not only learn our nation’s history, but to be a part of it! These six days will be a learning experience we will never forget…

We began this morning by picking everyone up and then making the common “We have to go back I forgot…” trips before leaving Huntsville. Our first destination was Chelsea’s Café in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The trip began on a humorous note when we found the restaurant under a bridge, literally. It was accessed by taking a series of barely connected gravel roads and past a man in a parking lot with a chain saw. The jokes continued when I got out of the car and found a huge chocolate stain on my white shirt. Professor Yawn told me to hold my scarf over it and to be quiet. The other guys wondered why it was a big deal to have a large chocolate stain on my shirt. Guys….

I didn’t help my case when I got to the restaurant and spilt my coke. Sorry Blake!

After lunch we traveled to the Louisiana State Capitol Building. Did you know that at 355 feet, it is the tallest capitol building in the country? This is our second time to visit the Louisiana state capitol; the first time we stopped on our way to campaign for Senator Mary Landrieu in November.
Our next destination is Alabama.
-Megan

January 18, 2009 - 2:04am
Leaving Montgomery, AL

When we arrived in Mobile we decided to eat at a popular local restaurant named Wintzell’s Oyster Bar. We have a rule in our organization that we do not eat at any chain restaurants on our trips. This forces us to get the full experience of a city and try new types of food, particularly those with a local flavor. When we ate in Baton Rouge we ordered Cajun fried mushrooms with crawfish; in Mobile, a port town, we had oysters and crab fingers. Tomorrow in Atlanta I look forward to trying some authentic soul food! (Fun note: At Wintzell’s we sat next to the University of Alabama’s quarterback, John Wilson!)

Okay, so enough about eating. We saw some awesome historical places in Alabama. The capitol building was absolutely stunning; it was classic and welcoming. I learned that Jefferson Davis, the first and only president of the confederacy, was sworn in on the steps of the current Alabama capitol. There is a gold star in the marble that marks exactly where he stood! I feel like we are on a treasure hunt of history leading to the spot marked X: Inauguration.

Next Destination: Atlanta, GA. 157 miles. Estimated arrival time: 5:30am.

UPDATE! 5:11AM: It was a “dark and stormy night.” It was a little past five am and the rain is pouring down. Other than road noise, the only sound was my faint typing on the laptop as I edited everyone’s blog entries. This reverie, however, was interrupted by a message in red and blue. The message said: “pull over.” The police pulled Professor Yawn over because the van was “bouncing around.” As it turned out, he let us go without even asking for a driver’s license. We were free to complete the final miles to our first “overnight” destination: Atlanta.
P.S.
If the officer that pulled us over is any indication, southern accents are a lot thicker in Georgia than they are in Texas.
-Megan

January 19, 2009: 1:07am
Just past the Virginia border

When we left Atlanta I took over as driver so the others could rest for a few hours. I finally get all four of the guys asleep and snoring with their mouths open but I’m driving so I can’t reach for the camera!

We just pulled over in Virginia, after my seven-hour drive, and Professor Yawn and I switched seats. Virginia highways are extremely dark and obviously gas stations do not stay open past 12:00am, or at least the four we went to don’t. The fog was starting to get pretty annoying but as we are driving it seems to be clearing up. One more hour and we arrive in Richmond, Virginia. Richmond will be our home sweet home for the next two nights.
Our Atlanta adventure started off extremely well when we ate brunch at South City Kitchen. I had the best grits I’ve ever had in my entire life! I was also glad to be in Georgia, the Deep South, so I didn’t feel impolite asking for ketchup with my eggs.

After brunch we visited the MLK Jr. Grave site, the state Capitol, and the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library. This is my fourth presidential library to visit including the Johnson, Bush, and Clinton Libraries, the latter of which I interned at this summer. As for Atlanta, I absolutely loved it. It is a big beautiful city with a lot of history. As the last blogger of the night I’m sure the others have told you all plenty of details concerning our day.

We will be arriving around 2:45am which sounds heavenly compared to the previous 5:30am! Professor Yawn recently complimented our cooperation and commitment to this rough and long trip. But as the other students and I discussed earlier today, when else would we be able to take a ten-state road trip, visit state capitols at 2 in the morning, legitimately miss school, and get KBTX viewers to read about it?? Who knows maybe tonight we will get 4 solid hours of sleep, or splurge and go for 5!
-Megan

January 20, 2009: 1:15am
Hotel in Richmond, VA

My fellow Texans, it has been a long three days but the big moment is only a few hours away. Even though the long drives, cold weather, and extensive sight-seeing is tiring, we are trucking through and remain enthusiastic in the final taunting hours. The Transportation Department suggested being at the metro at 3:00 AM. The reality of that early hour hit us when we arrived in our hotel tonight at 12:45 AM—and saw a group of people in the lobby departing for the inauguration.

As Texans, we do not have an intuitive sense of cold weather. Prior to the trip, Professor Yawn warned us about the weather. One night, about two weeks before the inauguration, the temperature in Huntsville was in the mid thirties. We received a text message from him that read:

“Students,It’s about 35 degrees in Huntsville right now. To prepare for the inauguration, go outside and stand still for about eight hours. Well, in DC it will be colder than that. Dress warm.”

He always sends cheery little messages.

Seriously, Professor Yawn did warn us it could possibly be as cold as fifteen degrees. I have never been in weather that cold, so it does not mean anything to me. Earlier today, for example, we stood in line for about an hour to see Mount Vernon. I was sure that the temperature was thirty degrees or lower. I later discovered it was actually about forty degrees or warmer. The low tonight is supposed to be nineteen degrees, and I know that is a lot colder than forty. We are stocked up on layers of clothing and hand/foot warmers to stay warm. We also have good attitudes and a great deal of energy and excitement. It is day three, and I haven’t hurt one of the guys yet.

Realistically, we know that fatigue will set in. Saturday morning, we slept for three and a half hours. Sunday morning, we slept for four hours. We won’t sleep tonight. We still have to research some routes and travel options to the inauguration. We have to pack up, check out of our hotel, drive to a park and drive, take the shuttle to the metro, and then go on the metro to the Capitol Hill station. If we arrive early, we will see the sites.
Signing off with heavy eyes but a buoyant spirit!

-Megan

Thursday, January 22, 2009, 1:34AM
Somewhere in Virginia


The inauguration was an unforgettable experience in every respect.

Following a sleepless night (see Professor Yawn’s blog for the pre-inaugural preparations), we arrived at the Metro at 6:30 am. The Metro was aswarm with impatient and unruly people. With no effective authority to ensure efficiency, the Metro was largely an everyone-for-themselves environment. It took us more than an hour to board.

Being on board was little better. The going was slow, with the Metro driver often being forced to stop on the tracks to wait for this or that problem to be cleared. Sporadically, the stations nearest the mall area were closed, forcing us to “circle the runway.” We spent almost two hours on the Metro.

This left us almost two hours to manage our way to our ticket gate. Congressman Brady had generously provided us with purple tickets, which were standing tickets but just beyond the seating area.

The crowd was like nothing I had ever seen before. Estimates put the total number of people at two million, perhaps more. It was, according to the news, the most people who had ever visited Washington, DC simultaneously. There were people of all sorts: young, old, middle aged, handicapped, black, white, Asian, and Hispanic. We met people who had traveled from Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, London, and even College Station. Howdy!

Unfortunately, none of them could help us get to our destination. On a normal day, it would have taken approximately fifteen minutes to get to the ticket gate. Security, however, had shut down many roads and it wasn’t clear which roads were and were not open. Volunteers were not informed of changes in security precautions and the first five sets of directions we received resulted in dead ends. Still, we had one last run in us—literally. At 10:45 am, we received our best, most detailed information about the path to our ticket gate. We had forty-five minutes to traverse a mile and a half amidst two million people. When space permitted, we ran. At 11:30 am, we were a block away from our ticket gate when we were told that no one else would be admitted.

At that moment, it was a devastating realization. We had been awake for more than twenty-four hours straight. We had been in DC for five hours, being pushed, shoved, and misdirected. I wanted to cry, but I didn’t want to hear it from the guys on our trip back.

The moment passed. The realization that I was still part of something historic, that I was an eyewitness to an historic event, and that I was enormously fortunate re-emerged.

We were there! We were listening and watching, stealing every glimpse. We were actually standing there on January 20, 2009 at the nation’s capital as President Barack Obama was sworn into the presidency. We have something to tell our grandchildren. We have something to look back on for years and years to come and are able to say…”Oh yeah President Obama’s historic inauguration?...I was there.”

Thursday, January 22nd, 2009: 2:08 AM
Tennessee

Following our return from the inauguration, everyone was too worn out, too spent to blog. The good news is that I got eight hours of sleep. I woke up Wednesday recharged and ready to go.

It’s a good thing, because Wednesday’s agenda included Virginia stops at James Monroe’s home, Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, lunch at a historic tavern and a tour of Staunton. Staunton was the real surprise. Not only is the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library located there, but it is also populated with beautiful Queen Anne and Greek Revival buildings that stretch across hilly landscapes. A few Gothic Revival churches were thrown in to punctuate the scenery.

We also made a random stop in Wytheville, VA. We were able to play in the snow like children and we also took a tour of the city’s historic district—very impressive!

Tennessee also has its share of historical landmarks. Our path doesn’t take us through to many, but we did have a chance to see two of Andrew Johnson’s homes—the fourth presidential homestead we visited this trip alone! And that doesn’t count the White House or the Carter Presidential Library.

The downside is that it is not clear whether we will make it to our planned destination tonight. We had hoped to make it to Birmingham, AL, but GPS tells us that our ETA is 6:20 AM, and I don’t know that we are up for another four hours on the road.