Tonight is the night. It's probably the night that will never end considering it will run into the morning when we leave the place we're staying in Arlington for the Metro around 5 a.m. We definitely debated heading out on the first train at 4 a.m., but then reconsidered after realizing how much content we need to finish producing tonight before heading back to Elon tomorrow afternoon.
Today was very productive, once again. Our first interview was around 10 a.m. at the Willard Hotel. It was really interesting to hear about the history behind the hotel, especially when I found out that Martin Luther King Jr. stayed there to finish his "I Have a Dream" speech and that Abraham Lincoln stayed there on occasion. After the grand tour of the Willard, we headed over to the White House to catch some tourists, and that's when it started to snow! Unfortunately, it ended as abruptly as it started, but the fat, solid flakes made me smile enough to hope for more later on in the afternoon (though they never came).
We then made our LONG trek to the Dirksen Senate Office Building to interview Kay Hagan. There were a lot of entertaining moments that accompanied that trip. First, we found out we were at the wrong intersection...the building was not where we thought it would be. So, as we're trying to figure out where to go, the three of us break into a semi-run straight ahead toward the capitol and Supreme Court, realizing we only have 10 minutes left to get to the building, through security and down to the basement where her office is. The added tricky part was that we had a 5-minute window. If we weren't there at exactly 1 p.m. our interview would vanish at 1:06. It was definitely crunch time. We finally found the building and at 12:56, called to her office to have someone come get us and vouch for camera gear to get us through security. At 12:58, our escort came and we bypassed everyone standing in line for their senators' last available tickets for inauguration. There were some kind and loving words exchanged behind us as we were escorted in front of them through security. I had to wonder, did they realize they were talking about us that loudly when we were less than a foot away? At that point, we simply didn't have the energy to turn around and say that we were with the press and promised to not take away what little chance they had at obtaining tickets anyway. OK, so at that point, we were very overheated and not up to debating or feeling very remorseful.
When we got into the office at 1 p.m., we were feeling very confident about getting as much in as possible into the 2-minute slot we were alotted with Hagan. She was very busy today! It was a great interview and it seemed like she would have loved to talk more if only she had the time. After that, we headed to Richard Burr's office with hopes of an interview, but got a photo instead. Later, I conducted a phone interview with Howard Coble. It was a big day for interviews with politicians!
Our day was winding down, but before we headed out of the city, Derek and I were determined to get a story on the street vendors. After interviewing four of them, we had a solid base for our pet feature story.
And now, after dinner and a couple cans of ginger ale, I am tackling about four stories at once and uploading hundreds of photos to flickr so that The Pendulum and Burlington Times-News have solid content from us to run in the papers and online! So for now, good night (though it may never end) and good luck!
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