Well by now everybody has seen the images of Saturday's Rally in St. Louis. 100,000 strong were in support of Barack Obama's run to the White House this past weekend. I was there and witnessed history. Hear is my story.
First, I want to tell you how we got there and what our thoughts were leading up to the event. My wife and I got an email on Wednesday last week telling us about the rally. We had no plans for the weekend and certainly didn't expect to take a trip into Missouri for a one day event. The prior weekend we attended a fundraising event in our town for Obama which had about 100 people show up. It inspired us to do more to elect Obama.
You see we are both originally from Missouri and both of our families still live in different parts of Missouri and we had no plans to visit until the holidays. We just moved from Jacksonville, Florida (hence the name Duval Slugger) to another even redder state of Oklahoma. Living in Tulsa is sort of similar to a typical Missouri town but with very different beer laws (don't get me started on beer laws).
We also have a 7 month-old baby we were unsure if he would travel well. The drive up to St. Louis is about 6 hours a direct route up US44. We left at midnight after I got off work and planned the drive overnight so my son could sleep in the car on the way up. After a quick detour at the in-laws to drop off the dog and say hi we then got into St. Louis around 9am. So no sleep and 8 hours on the road later we arrived in downtown St. Louis with my brother and my wife's sister in tow.
The five of us had only heard that Obama would be on the Arch grounds and that 50,000 were expected to attend. 50,000 would be very large to say the least. After passing through the gates we walked up the hill to see an amazing gathering of real Americans assembling together to change the direction of this country.
The following pictures and video are my way of preserving the historic day for you all to see and someday to tell my son (not pictured) what an amazing and historic event it was. I hope you enjoy.
We walked down the hill to get closer but the best view was back on the hill.
We turned around to check out the crowd behind us.
Upfront we couldn't get close enough to actually see the podium.
They did have a large video screen to the right which everyone could see.
Clair McCaskill riled up the crowd before a guest speaker introduced Obama.
The crowd continued to fill in the available grass space.
It was an absolutely beautiful day in St. Louis.
I saw an older gentleman standing by himself at the rally. I kept seeing him and wished I dragged my father out to the rally with us. A little bit later an African-American man introduced himself to the older white man and they exchanged handshakes and even a hug as they were both happy to be at this unique event. I thought this was so amazing to see such diversity in the crowd. I had to snap this picture.
When Barack Obama came out the crowd went nuts.
Sorry for the shaky camera. Here's a still.
The speech really inspired the masses. I couldn't tell you how many people were there at the time.
I just knew it was over 50,000.
It was great idea for pulling in undecided voters.
After the speech everyone wanted to get a closer look at the next President.
I haven't been this inspired since Howard Dean hooked me with the slogan, "I want my country back"
Hope you enjoyed it!
Vote early!