Sanity and/or fear

Our current political landscape really reminds me of a circus freak show. So when the opportunity came up for me to attend the Stewart/Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, I jumped. It helped that Pete was already in DC for a couple of meetings and was also looking to go. Throw in some cool fall weather and an Austin friend moving to DC, and you have the makings for a nice long weekend.

I arrived in DC Thursday afternoon just in time to meet Pete's colleagues for dinner and drinks. Dinner was at Tosca - a nice Italian place - I had the raviolis stuffed with roasted veal. Drinks were at Mr. Smith's - a Georgetown piano bar. I think "piano bar" says it all. And their beer list stinks.

Friday morning, I had a chance to explore Georgetown on my own. It was just a short walk across the Key Bridge (linking Arlington, VA and DC):


Their M Street would be analogues to our Sixth Street - restaurants, bars, shops. Apparently, cupcakes have arrived in Georgetown:


But then again, so have steel Colnagos:


Lunch Friday was at Ray's Hell Burgers (a place Obama and Biden made quite a stir at recently). The burgers were good.


Afterward, we played tourist and did a lot of walking. Checked out the Georgetown canal system and walked around Healy Hall on campus:





Heading east, the obligatory White House picture:


Apparently, there are Chinese in DC. And they have a gate:


Saturday, we packed up and headed to Kammi's new place in the Eastern Market area of Capital Hill. Cool place. Julie had just driven up from Austin to DC with Kammi the night before. We dropped off our bags and headed to the rally, which was only a short walk away.


Ummm. The rally was huge. By CBS' professional estimate, there were 215000 attendees (compare that to the 87000 estimated for the Glenn Beck rally). We got there around 10:AM, and the place was already packed (picture below from CBS).


People were everywhere:




And there were a few bears too. This one is a little tired:


12:00 noon kicked off 3 hours of a very eclectic line up: Adam and Jamie from Mythbusters, Sam Waterston, Father Guido Sarducci. The Roots, John Legend, Kid Rock, Sheryl Crow, Mavis Staples, Jeff Tweedy, Tony Bennett, The O'Jays, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. And let's not forget Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) and Ozzy Osbourne doing a medley of Peace Train and Crazy train. You can watch the 3 hour video stream on CSPAN.

By the time the rally was over and we had walked back to Capital Hill, we had been on our feet for 8 hours. So naturally we waited in line for another hour to get seated for dinner. After dinner, we explored the Eastern Market area and had a couple more drinks:


Sunday morning's 8:15 flight back to Austin came way too early - the only payoff being we would get back to Austin around 10:30AM. So we got up at 5:00 to catch a 6:AM town car to Dulles. The plane took off without a hitch, but an hour and a half into the flight, the flight crew discovered a vibration they couldn't reconcile, so we returned to Dulles:


We then waited until noon for another plane to become available, and finally made it back to Austin around 3:30PM. It was a long day, but a great trip overall.

Btw, I heard that Eric placed 3rd in the individual TT at Gruene this past weekend, and Weston and Eric placed 2nd in the team TT. Congrats!