Only The Leader of the Free World

We knew something was up on Wednesday night, there were no parking signs up and down the street in front of Jack's school, which is a major arterial here is NE Seattle.  Then we heard that President Obama was going to come to our neighborhood to meet at an "average" home for a backyard discussion.  After taking Jack to school, Grace and I followed the signs and found the street pretty easily, as it was crawling with secret service and Seattle cops.  After I dropped Grace off at school an hour later I got ready to head out to work but decided to do a little drive by just in case... 

Holy cow, this was dramatic and spectacular.  I've never seen a presidential cavalcade (is that the right word) before and it is impressive.  This picture doesn't even come close to doing it justice.  All the bike cops had their lights flashing and the line of official cars seemed to go on for miles.  Obama was in the second Cadillac, a crazy tank-like looking vehicle, I could see his profile as he passed.  I was so excited I couldn't work my camera when the car was in front of me, I just waved and looked awestruck.  I ran around the corner after it turned and saw this...

That's his car just backed right into the driveway of the "average" house, which by the way, was really pretty average.  That's a kind of cute secret service agent walking by.  If I had got the call with the invitation to host the President in my house I would have totally and absolutely said "no thanks".  Can you imagine the pressure of having the President in your house?  Nope...no, thank you.  I'd have to really clean, as opposed to what I usually do, vacuum, dust, and spray a lot of air freshener around to mask the Labrador smell which tends to permeate all fabrics and rugs in the house...done.  Oh lord, and the bathroom.  Ack, but I guess somebody's got to do it.

I never got an actual glimpse of our actual leader in the flesh, but it was exciting none the less.  Jack's whole middle school was allowed to stand out front while the motorcade (aha, that's the word) passed by and Jack swears Obama responded to his peace sign in kind.  I choose to believe that really happened.