The conclusion

This is the last entry in our blog of "Inaugural Afoot," posted mainly by Chris Bessler of Sandpoint, Idaho, with one key post by wife Sandy (that's her above with the button man). It describes the experiences of our party of four Sandpointers afoot at the inauguration of Barack Obama. We're all home now, the trip is concluded and so is this blog.

If you want to read the whole thing as a chronological narrative of the trip with its ups and downs, start with "Before the first step is the idea" posting at the bottom of the convenience menu at right. Click that link. And then read your way up the list. The whole journal comprises 17 posts, some short and others too long.

Or to see just the entries about Inauguration Day itself, scroll to the bottom of this page and read your way up.

If you haven’t already, read Obama’s inaugural address. I’ve read some critics in the last couple days panning it as not lofty or eloquent. I disagree. In fact, as skilled an orator he is – and even having stood there to see him deliver it in person – his address is even more impressive as written prose that resonates on fundamental human values, on American ideals and on the present challenges that we face as a people. Click to read it.

And you critics among the readers: I’d be interested to know what parts of his address you disagree with. Do post and say.

Although, I have this picture in my mind still fresh from January 20, and the remarkable sight two miles down the mall. Having been in that sea of a million-plus optimistic, happy, hopeful Americans, something Obama said in his address sticks out: "What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them."