Why yes, I am crazy. Thanks for asking. December 30, 2008

I am going to the Presidential Inauguration. I’ll be staying with a friend (if I couldn’t do that, this trip would be impossible because there are NO hotel rooms ANYWHERE up there). The only problem is (oh who am I kidding–there are a million problems!) that I live in west Tennessee, and she lives in Virginia. I did a quick mapquest search and from my town to her town is 718 miles–a little over 11 hours (and I’ll lose an hour because I’ll change time zones). HOLY CRAP! That is about 100 more miles than I have driven at a time (by myself). Another problem: she lives about 1.5 hours (not considering Inauguration Day traffic) from the closest Metro station into DC. SO pretty much I get to wake up at 4 am on the 19th, leave my house by 6, drive 11 hours (not including stops, which I have to do–I’m not one of those people who can drive straight through without stopping….), get to her house possibly in time for dinner (a late dinner), hang out a bit (probably have a few cocktails and watch Bon Jovi DVDs), pass out from exhaustion. Then on the 20th, I haven’t worked out all the details yet, but I am thinking I will probably need to leave her house by 5-6am in order to get to the station and find a place to park and actually get on the train (this could be a nightmare–and it probably will be). Then I really have no idea what to expect once I get to the Mall…..probably chaos (I just hope it’s controlled chaos). And I hope it’s not raining because umbrellas aren’t allowed. Oh yeah, and all of these plans are assuming that the weather is perfect (which is iffy at best in the middle of January!). I have lost my freaking mind. I cannot believe I am doing this. Normally I would say HELL NO I am not driving 11+ hours in JANUARY so that I can stand outside in  a crowd of millions of people for 6+ hours IN JANUARY and then turn around and drive 11+ hours back home. It makes no sense–none whatsoever. But for some strange reason, I cannot seem to talk myself out of it. I can’t explain it, but I just don’t care about all these insane obstacles. I WILL be there. I HAVE to be. That’s all I can think of. It will probably end up being the craziest and most amazing thing I have ever done. I will be a part of history being made. (I might even be able to find myself in the pictures that will inevitably be in my children’s text books!) This is just too great an opportunity to pass up. It’s not good enough to just watch it on TV. I want to say I WAS THERE. And so I will make the biggest road trip of my life under *potentially* some of the greatest dangers (there is still a little nagging fear in the very back, darkest corner of my mind that something disastrous will happen) of my life (this includes snow/ice storms, etc). There is absolutely no reason that I should do this. If I made a pro/con list, the cons would more than triple the pros. But I am still determined to do this. And so, yes, I am crazy. Thanks for asking.