Before the first step is the idea

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, or so Lao-tzu said back around 550 B.C. But before the first step in any journey comes the idea. In this case it was Sandy Bessler's idea, back in about August whilst caught in the throes of the election.

The idea was: what if our candidate, Barack Obama, won? Wouldn't it be a neat experience to go to the inauguration?

Maybe I'll elaborate later on why we thought it would be a good idea. And with reports at the moment that there could be a gazillion other folks in DC for the inauguration, we'll see just how good an idea it turns out to be. One thing for sure, though, is that it's going to be an interesting journey.

With that in mind and just for grins, and assuming one or two folks may be interested in getting a sense of the inauguration through the eyes of a friend or neighbor, I'll put up a daily report on our progress and the sights, sounds and sensations from this big national mash-up on the capitol mall.

Our little party of four include Sandy and Chris Bessler, son Nate and friend Autry White. We're not the only ones in Sandpoint who took hold of the idea to go to the inauguration. Here's a story from the current issue of River Journal, Party of 5 Million, by Trish Gannon.

I'm sure hoping that Trish has applied a liberal dash of journalistic license to her crowd estimate.