Edgewater resident Carolyn Garver was one of thousands of spectators who traveled here to witness President Barack Obama's inauguration, but wasn't able to get near the event itself.

"Even though we couldn’t see the screens, it was incredible to be part of it,” she says. “I was one of those 280,000 who got to the parade route and got in, but wasn’t able to get to the Mall."
 
Garver says she was staying with friends who had kids, so they left their spot before the parade started -- a good choice, she says, since the parade began nearly an hour late.

“I wanted to share it with (my friends), that is what was important, not necessarily being on the Mall,” Garver said. “I knew anywhere we were in downtown would have been good enough.”

Confusion reigned in some places after spectators started flooding the Mall well before daybreak. Many people tried to walk to the Mall from the north, only to be blocked by security checkpoints on all north-south streets in downtown Washington. Those who took the Metro to stations on the south side of the Mall faced thick crowds in the warm and dimly lit stations as people walked up escalators and passed through turnstiles.

The crowd stretched from the Capitol steps to the Lincoln Memorial, almost two miles to the west, standing in near silence for most of the swearing-in ceremony. Many waved small flags and cheered at points.

Obama sounded a tone of both caution and optimism after being sworn in at about noon Tuesday, during his address to two million people crowded onto the National Mall.

“Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and begin the work of rebuilding America,” Obama said in his speech.

Hammond, Ind., resident Frank Madeka was among those on the National Mall, and among an expected several thousand Chicagoans. Madeka says he was in Springfield in February 2007 when Obama declared his candidacy, and he later attended numerous other Obama events in the Midwest.

“I just wanted to finish it off. I’ve even got my Chicago flag ready to go,” he said, pulling it out of his coat pocket and unfurling it before the swearing-in.

As expected, a breeze kept wind chills in the teens and lower 20s for much of the day. Clear skies and bright sun provided a small measure of warmth.

Many people waited an hour or more to buy coffee and hot chocolate from vendors on the Mall; by 10 a.m., nearly two hours before Obama’s swearing-in, hot drinks had run out at some of the stands. Instant hot packs that had turned cold littered the ground, along with countless plastic wrappers and shredded newspaper pages.

The crowd, while polite for Obama’s speech, was not afraid to express itself during the lengthy procession before the swearing-in.

When a camera showed former President George W. Bush walking down a hallway of the Capitol, and the image beamed to the Jumbotrons lining the Mall, many people booed loudly. And when Bush made his entrance onto the inaugural stage, the boos were so loud they overpowered the voice announcing his entrance.

One man in the crowd started chanting, “Go back, go back, go back to the ‘hood.” Another group picked up the chorus to the stadium song “Kiss Him Goodbye,” which includes the phrase “Na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na, hey, hey, hey, goodbye.”

Logan Square resident Steve Vargas spent much of his time shooting video of the crowds on the Mall for a future documentary on Obama that he is starting to work on, interviewing people watching the inauguration from near the Washington Monument.

 “It was great energy, great excitement out there,” he says. “A lot of people were really listening, really attentive to what was going on, and really emotional as well.”