Where were you when you found out who won the election last night?

It was a spontaneous decision to travel to Chicago last night for the huge Obama Rally. I know what question must be on your mind. Why did Betsy and I vote for McCain, yet go to an Obama rally in the same day?
Answer? History.
Whatever happened last night was going to be historical on many levels, and being less than two hours away, and having a friend who wanted to go so bad, made it quite an easy decision.
My friend, Betsy, and I headed to the city around 7:30 p.m. our time, arrived to the O'Hare parking lot, in order to take a train into the city (parking was not allowed in the city unless you lived there, apparently). We met her friend, Johnny, at the train station and we all three rode in together (Don't worry, Mom, we made it home safe!).

This was just some random train rider guy that decided he wanted to be in the picture too.

After we arrived, we took potty breaks, got coffee, then followed the crowds.
It was absolutely amazing. The amount of people there. The crowds. Such a diverse group. So much excitement in the air. The energy was overwhelming!

In this picture, you can see the mass of people on our way to one of the many parks with huge screens showing the election coverage on CNN Live. You can see one of those screens in this picture. I'm not sure how many screens they had in the park, but it seemed as though the main tent where Obama's speech was given was surrounded by an incredible amount of people watching one of the screens.

We also met Johnny's friend, Fred, who had flown in from France for this rally! Actually all four of us there all went to the same University here in town! What a small world, huh? We continued to stop on the way there to take pictures and chat with people. I decided that being in the heart of the city and around so many supporters, that it would be smart to blend in. So, Betsy and I wore those pins that said "I was there!" "Senator Barack Obama" "Election Night Rally" "Grant Park, Chicago" "4 November 2008".
Yes, I know. I should have shown my support to the person I voted for, but figured I better blend in, just in case riots broke out or something, ya know? And don't worry, I heard that throughout the entire city, there was not one reported fight or argument!
This Texan Obama supporting dog was like a Great Dane/Dalmatian mix and was so big, I couldn't help but take a picture, mostly for Natalie to compare the size to Walter!

Betsy and I standing in the crowded park, ready to find out the election results as they came in.

Here's a picture of Oprah in the crowd on the TV.

We had earlier discussed that I thought I had heard that whoever won Ohio was the basically the president, and had heard that it was Virginia that was the deciding state. So, of course we heard that Ohio was projected as an Obama win, I sure hoped I was wrong and Betsy was right, because that would mean we still had hope.

But then, they showed the Virginia results. That's when we, and everyone around us, knew. There were cheers and shouts and chants surrounding us, as we stood there. I think we both knew what was going to happen, but just not ready for it to actually happen. My eyes filled with tears. Such an emotional moment in history, on ALL accounts and just SO many levels!

This video is of the chanting after he was named President elect.

This is a portion of the McCain speech. You will hear the reaction of the Chicago crowd over the Arizona crowd, mostly. And I know that most of you saw this on TV last night, but when he got on that stage and conceded, it was so final. A very bittersweet moment, I felt.

I'm not sure who sang this song, but I didn't notice until I got to work and a few of my co-workers mentioned the odd ending note on this song... take a listen and you'll see. One of them said it was probably because she wanted to end on a high note! Ha-ha!

To be fair, Obama's speech was incredible. He is a phenomenal speaker and whoever wrote this speech has talent! I have just a couple clips on this.

Beginning of when Obama came out on the stage...

This is a bit more of his speech... I don't know if I captured it or not, but it was really funny when the lady on the bottom right of the screen was signing, she would put her hands up to each side of her and shake her hands in the air to show "applause" and it was cracking us up!

Following the speech we all headed out of the park and down the street. There were so many mass people it was incredible that we didn't get lost from each other!
There was so much patriotism there last night. It was so surreal!
Here you can see that the police were out there in force! They literally lined the streets!
Here's our small group of people. Johnny is the one on the top left, then Fred next to him. Other than me and Betsy, I can't remember, for the life of me, the names of the others, but we all had a good time!
Here's one of many mass crowd pictures!

There were many moments last night that are worth mentioning:

-There were three ladies just singing the national anthem over and over in the middle of the road (most of all the roads were closed for foot traffic!) And it just felt amazing to hear the harmony and the echo against the tall Chicago buildings!

-One guy in the thick massive crowd kept giving everyone hugs and telling them that he loved them! I stayed away! Ha-ha!

-At one point, we cut through an alley, that we normally wouldn't even think about going down, but for the fact that there were about 100 of us passing through that alley to go to the other street. It smelled of urine, but was pretty clean otherwise. Near the end of the alley, we saw this homeless man. He started to tell us something that was so funny. "Wow, I've lived here for almost 6-months now and haven't had THIS many visitors before!"

I guess there were about 150,000 people there, but it felt more like a million! And honestly, it would have been cool to tell people that I was "one in a million"! Ha-ha! Pun intended!