Getting into Parade Position

The only site of confusion was leaving the Mall.  Unless you had parade tickets you had to exit off the Independence Ave side with only the L'Enfant and Federal Metro stations for all those people.  Yikes.  Instead, I meandered around the Mall checking out cool things.  I saw the portable MSNBC studio ( I think that is Gene Robinson, Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow) on the lawn in front of the Hirshorn Museum, the C-Span mobile campaigne bus and got a closer look at the Capitol.  I waited until the ticketed seats cleared so I could get to the parade route up by 1st and Constitution.