It was a beautiful day here in St Louis - a sunny Fall day, crisp and pleasant. A perfect day to join one hundred thousand fellow Barack Obama supporters to journey down to the riverfront and hear him speak under the Gateway Arch.
Our train stop is only the 2nd stop on the line and it was SRO when we got on, so we knew we were in for a crowd! When we got off the train stop on Laclede's Landing, they announced directions for exiting the station for those going to the rally: a right, a left and another left. It's just that the last left was a loooooooooooooooooooooong left. Blocks and blocks.
Here is a link to the map I created showing the line.
The crowd was happy and excited despite the incredibly long line. One guy even started the wave. When the line started moving it moved at a pretty good clip. Then all of a sudden there was pretty much no line anymore- just a crowd of people moving toward the security tents on Market Street.
A benefit to being so far in line that we were down by the riverfront was that we got to see Obama's motorcade drive by - I saw Obama in the back seat!
Oddly enough, there was no one manning the security tents. There were Obama volunteers directing the flow of people, but no security.
Jax Nixon, the future governor of Missouri, began speaking around 11:45. Claire McCaskill was next and she gave a great speech. She has been there from day one for Obama and has worked hard. It is due in no small part to her hard work that Missouri may WILL go Blue for OBama!
A 6th grade math teacher from a City Charter School spoke next about how important Obama is for the middle class. About how he has to work at Domino's because he cannot support himself being a teacher. About how destructive the Bush policies have been for the middle class. He then introduced Obama to the very appreciative crowd.
Obama's speech was great and he was very effective in contrasting his tax and economic plans to the (non)plans of McCain. When he noted that he STILL hadn't heard how John McCain's economic policies would be any different than those of Bush's, the crowd went wild.
As we were leaving, people were STILL streaming in hoping to catch a glimpse of Obama.