By mid afternoon I was exhausted because I was concentrating on so many things all at once. I had to get things done as quick as possible because I needed to leave town at 5pm in order to drive to Phoenix (three hours) to get to the McCain Victory Rally.
After picking up Heather, I hit the road with high hopes. The early election results were coming in over the radio and they weren't great; but there was still a lot of hope because there were many, many states that weren't reporting results yet.
Heather and I got to the Biltmore in Phoenix about 5 minutes before McCain took the stage. Because of all the talking and excitement, it was quite unexpected for him to come out and suddenly concede the election to his opponent.
The press was everywhere.
We had a very difficult time getting around and whenever we managed to slip a little and show some emotion, there was a very big video camera in our faces. Heather and I just smiled as best we could and graciously avoided the press as much as possible. Our congressman, Trent Franks, was out in the lobby and I patiently waited for my turn to talk to him. I never got the chance; he was so busy giving interviews that I couldn't step in there and talk.
After a short amount of time consoling some very disapointed campaign workers, Heather and I got outside to wait in line for a bus that would take us to the lot where my car was. It was about ten miles away--that was the arrangment that the Biltmore had to make because of the big crowds. We waited in line for an hour for our bus, and talked politics with the other attendees. We tried to be positive but it was difficult. There are a lot of sad people out there.
We met up with my friend Jeff Gordon who is a Phoenix police officer, he'd gotten off work about 10pm and it was nice to finally get to see him. We never seem to be able to hang out when he's in Havasu or I'm in Phoenix.
We had the most fun getting coffee at the gas station at midnight.
Here we were trying to do one of those dramatic "No Smile" myspace photos that the teenagers do;
I was starting to get silly from being tired, so I was excited to find the Flavor Center at the gas station. It had eight different coffee additives for the very old stale gas station coffee:
Heather and I couldn't stay in Phoenix all night, we had responsibilities at home so we hit the road again.
We arrived in Havasu at 4am, and talked of how great it was to finally get back.
Today my sad feelings from McCain's loss is compounded by extreme fatigue and a touch of an allergy problem. I'll get over it.
