A day off of work to see our President!!

Late last week it was announced that President Obama would make another visit to Cedar Rapids on Tuesday, July 10th.

Cedar Rapids you say? Some of you might be wondering what Obama would be doing in this lovely city. Well, Iowa is a huge swing state, even Obama claimed Iowans never take a break from politics. Cedar Rapids also holds a special place in Obama's heart because after he announced his intention to run for President in 2007, the first stop on his campaign was at Kennedy High School, in, you guessed it, Cedar Rapids. So he decided to make another visit.

Lucky for me, Whitney had a connection and was able to secure tickets for herself and four Coe friends. So I took a day off of work to see our President speak at Kirkwood College, about ten minutes from Coe.

We left pretty early from Coe, around 8 AM. Whitney drove, along with myself, Chelsea, and Reid. Once we got to Kirkwood we met up with the fifth member of the group, Antoine. Here's a picture we had the women next to us snap while we were waiting.

L to R: Reid, myself, Whitney, Chelsea, and Antoine

And let me tell you, we had to wait a while. We were actually pretty lucky; we got there right before the rush. We were about ten people from the front of the line. Doors didn't open until 10:15 AM so we had to wait around two hours until we could even get into the building. As the time passed, the line just kept getting longer.

That gave the five of us plenty of time to talk. And boy, do we get along well. Whitney picked just the right people because we all sort of clicked. Suddenly, it was 10:15 and time to enter the building!! Since we were at the front we snagged some pretty nice seats.

Of course, just because we got nice seats didn't mean that Obama was almost here; he wasn't due on the stage until 1 PM! So more waiting. Again, the five of us starting talking. In the time we were waiting, we decided the five of us should become the newest sitcom on television (we even started mapping out episodes!) and then we started a chant. That was fun. It made the time pass quite quickly. A band from the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City area played, a few speakers spoke, and finally, 1 PM arrived and Obama made his appearance. 

He talked for about 45 minutes. It's one thing to hear the President speak on TV but something entirely different to actually HEAR him speak. He is so elegant and fluid; nothing can disrupt him. His public speaking skills are superb and being a fairly decent public speaker, he was inspirational. 

We finally emerged from Kirkwood around 2:30 PM, our stomachs grumbling from the lack of lunch. With food on our minds, we made a stop at Jimmy Johns for sandwiches and discussion on what we had just heard. The five of us crammed into one of the small booths and just talked for half an hour or so on the upcoming election and the state of our country. It was fantastic; we all had interesting points to add since we come from all different backgrounds. It was a lively discussion and as we headed back to Coe, we decided the five (now known as The Troop) must get back together for more political discussion and fun times. 

Such a fantastic experience and another reason I'm so glad I'm in Cedar Rapids this summer!