Reflections on the road home

By Ebony Horton

Published: January 21, 2009

We almost didn’t make it to D.C.
A crew we were planning to go with canceled, and it just so happened the people on the new trip were gracious enough to offer two seats that had been canceled just a couple days before the ride.
But finally, after a trip to the Capitol, we’re headed back to the great state of Alabama to continue our life’s routines.
I have to admit I didn’t quite weather D.C.’s signature cold the entire time as some did to either see the Jumbotron or President Barack Obama make his speech.
Instead, my toes froze a little before Vice President Joe Biden took his oath of office, so I went and sat on one of the triage buses and hung out at a hot dog vendor’s van to keep warm.
One lady held a handheld TV thing-a-mer-jigger and we listened and watched Obama’s speech for change on there.
Then there was a huge shout of “We have a new president! We have a new president!”
By then, droves of people moved from the National Mall toward either the parade route or the shuttle buses.
Some of our crew visited some of the vendors.
Then, of course, there was the three-hour wait to find someone who apparently jumped on another bus.
But hey, the significance of this trip can’t be softened by anything, and there is one thing that has changed. After witnessing the official arrival of a new president and a new era, none of our lives will ever be the same.
Whether the change is as small as looking at a penny differently since Obama took the Oath of Office on President Abraham Lincoln’s Bible, or as large as taking a new outlook on life as a whole, the significance of this trip can’t be altered.