Tuesday, December 15, 2009

The Account of Cyndi's Trip to DC for the Michelle Bachmann DC Gathering

My sister-in-law went to Washington DC for the Nov 5 Michelle Bachmannn-organized "kill the bill" rally to express let her concerns be known about a government takeover of health care ... and everything else.

Brother jeffmon sends her account:
11/3 - Early in the morning, she leaves in the Jetta. Immediately out of the driveway, the car stalls. It's been having cold start problems. She re-starts it, and continues.

Illinois - Construction!

Indianapolis - Traffic! Construction!

Ohio - She arrives at the Reynoldsburg Super 8. It's not the nicest place in the world, replete with strip clubs, sirens, a drive-up to check in to the motel, and standing water in the tub.
11/4 - The car dies again, takes a while to start. After breakfast at Cracker Barrel, things are looking up. Until she is pulled over for 75 in a 65. The officer asks for the usual license, registration, and insurance, and asks where she is going. She tells him about her trip to DC to protest the house 'health care' bill. He asks if she knows how to get there, and lets her go with a warning.
Pennsylvania - Construction!

Maryland - OK.

Virginia - The tom-tom was inadvertently set to give walking directions to the Pentagon Best Western, so it sent her down every goat path from colonial times to get her there.

11/5 - Got up early. Took the hotel shuttle to catch the metro at Pentagon Center. There were other people from the hotel on the same mission, a 60 something Brenda from Houston (who was familiar with DC and help get Cyndi around) and a Seminole dude who had been testifying before congress about some veterans issues. He was sure Cyndi and her clothing and everything else about her was Seminole. Hmmm. Took the Blue Line to the capitol.

There were effigies of Pelosi and Reid. There were people all around the capitol, too many to just meet on the east steps like Bachmann had asked. There were snipers on the roof, and lots of areas blocked off to public access. People inside the capitol were looking out the windows at the crowd. After the speakers were done, pages from the bill were distributed, and people were asked to go in to the capitol office buildings and ask for explanations of that their page meant. There were long lines to get past security in the capitol office buildings.

As it turns out, the capitol building was surrounded by protesters.

In line, people were chanting Naaannnncyyyy..... Naaannnncyyyy.....

As Cyndi was waiting in line to go into the Cannon building, word came out were saying Pelosi was frightened and refused to see anyone. There was a report that she had some people detained (including an old priest, who had thrown pages from the bill at her, or maybe her staff). The second floor was closed. Another report came the Pelosi called a vote in an attempt to prevent representatives from interacting with the public.

Cyndi visited some unknown representative's office. There were cookies.

She also talked to some of Roy Blunt's people, who invited her to come to his office, but she never found it. She and the aforementioned Brenda visited her representative's office, they were very nice. They got hungry and left, eating dinner at the Pentagon City shopping area.

11/6 - The car died again. She got it going, and headed back toward Pennsylvania. She [..] ended up in a Holiday Inn near Big Beaver, PA. She had a good time with some revelers at the hotel who were celebrating birthdays and taking a weekend break from college. She was pretty sure one of them was brother Phil's [ed - that would be me] younger doppelganger.

11/7 - Cyndi [..] let the car warm up for several minutes before driving, and had no trouble. She spend an uneventful day driving to Indianapolis.

11/8 - Indianapolis to home. The bastards passed the bill the night before.
I like the bit where the cop let her go when he found out where she was going.  And, of course, the cookies.  Because everyone likes cookies.

No comments: