Outdoor recreation: At the National Mall for Obama's inauguration

January 28, 12:04 AMDC Outdoor Recreation ExaminerCharles Pekow

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Vice President-elect Joe Biden is seen on the screen on the National Mall during the Inauguration of President Elect Barack Obama in Washington, Tuesday, Jan 20, 2009. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

The debate goes on about how many people attended the Barack Obama inauguration. But all accounts agree between one and two million people from all over the world braved the sub-freezing temperatures of Washington. And no matter what count you use, the inauguration probably stands as the largest winter outdoor gathering in the history of the National Mall and Capitol grounds, hallowed ground that has seen so many marches, festivals, parades, protests, military events and 4^th of July celebrations.

So in a much smaller inauguration, I am inaugurated as your new DC Outdoor Recreation Examiner and I can think of no better place to start than to report my personal observations of my six hours out in the cold on that day of hope and outdoor excitement. If you watched on television, you certainly got a better view and better audio of the swearing in, entertainment and speech, to say nothing of a temperature-controlled environment. But you missed not only the aura of the event but the feeling of the crowd and the moment. And you had to put up with the commentary of the network anchors.

I arrived at Union Station around 9:30 a.m., as I had a “purple ticket,” which allowed entry only at the northwest entrance to the Capitol grounds a block from the station. I got there only to become part of a growing and clueless crowd. While the Inaugural Committee had advised everyone to come early as the gates would be opening at 8 a.m., for unexplained reasons, we weren’t allowed though the gates and screening until 10:30.

The crowd rushing between the trains and the gates passed the expected hucksters peddling Obama hats, sweatshirts and other mementos. Only one corporation used the occasion to hawk a new product – Alka-Seltzer girls were speedily handing out free 16-tablet packages of its cure for a hangover. (Ironically, the rules forbade alcohol at the event.) I don’t know if Bayer was trying to tell us if we’ll need a dose after all the Inauguration-related partying anyway or if we already need relief from “headache and fatigue” (as the box says) from eight years of the Bush Administration.

People seemed to file in smoothly. The place was so packed that from where I stood, in the SRO section at the bottom of Capitol Hill off to a side, you couldn’t even see the platform upon which the events were taking place. Stands with VIP seats completely blocked whatever view anyone might have enjoyed.

We had to watch on a screen that was partially obstructed by a tree. (In some places, you could, however, smell the chemicals used for the portable toilets the planners had the foresight to place in strategic locations – more strategic than the placement of the screens or seats.) In fact, most of the million and a half or however many people in attendance couldn’t see or hear directly and depended on the loudspeakers and monitors.

But nobody seemed to mind the cold, wait and lack of view too much as the crowd knocked down the cheap fences to get a better view. Occasionally, the crowd broke into chants of “O-ba-ma,” later to be echoed by those behind us with the Silver tickets.

Of course, when outgoing President George Bush was announced, the crowd evinced its opinion of him with a round of hissing. Wonder if it got back to him?

After the swearing in and speech, people started to leave, even before the music ended. Enough of the cold. We had seen the great event.

Getting on to the Metro required patience for hours thereafter as lines formed outside the stations as military officers kept more people from going into the stations than the platform could handle. But once on the subway, trains were running smoothly as far as I could tell.

Now that the hoopla has died down, the National Park Service has cleaned up the Mall and the celebrants have gone home or back to work, the real “fun” starts as our new president – and the rest of us – are going to have to figure out what to do about the wars, tanking economy, global warming and other domestic and international problems.

But stay tuned to this blog and we will enjoy together the outdoors together by foot, bicycle or any other way – as long as Obama and his policies help us preserve what is left of that once great outdoors.