Concert

We spent most of the morning driving around Rockville Pike unsuccessfully scoping out warm items. Hats and gloves were practically non-existent in all the stores we visited. REI sold out of 30,000 hand warmers in a day, and Hudson Trail sold out of 70,000. Entrepreneurial types bought them all up to hawk at the events, we soon found out...I guess the recession holds nothing over people's fears of freezing for a day.

At 2pm we took our 4 yr old boy and left our 6 yr old at a birthday party, where we figured she'd be happier and headed for the Bethesda Metro. The metro was practically empty, although the not so machine-card savvy people really tried my patience. After a long walk we got to the Mall area. It was CROWDED. The area from the Lincoln Memorial to the World War II Memorial was closed because it was "full." Their definition of full was only about 75% full which was pretty annoying. Security is being taken very seriously, with police sniper towers posted every hundred yards or so. The area towards the Washington Monument was packed. We ended up standing at the gate, looking straight past the World War II monument and to the Lincoln Memorial and distant jumbotrons. Having both attended and watched the concert on HBO I'm not sure it was the same event. The live concert was a mosh pit of crowds and reverberating noise, which somewhat resembled famous songs. On HBO the music was excellent and there was a fabulous fashion show of wintery finery to boot. Mary J. Blige's coat was to die for! This morning I found out that 2 friends were literally 10 feet away from us the whole time. I took a lot of photos...I tried uploading them from various apps on my iphone, but I guess the other 100,000 people at the concert had the same idea and the towers got overloaded. 

Photos here