I can’t tell you what Michelle Obama wore to the inauguration, but here are a few photos of the million-plus inaugural crowd when it wasn’t pressed too thick for me
to raise my arms to take a shot.

From our office at 4th and East Capitol (so close I heard escort sirens all night and 4 times an hour in the morning) I joined the stream of people without tickets that kept getting bigger as we walked west past the Capitol building and just kept going. 20 or so blocks and uncounted detours around blocked off streets later we were nearing the Washington Monument when I decided to stop walking.

I didn’t make it more than about 50 feet onto the mall (through an “entrance” in the barriers that looked like it appeared spontaneously), but I was close enough to a Jumbotron (that I caught a glimpse of once) to hear the music and speeches when everyone was especially quiet and the sirens stopped. It was the largest mass of people I’ve ever been in, all there participating in the political process and most taking the cold conditions and overwhelming crowds in stride.

My view:

Taking the streets

Enthusiasm worn

Mid-crowd Washington Monument