McCain-Palin rally in Colorado Springs

Only a couple days off the RNC, John McCain and Sarah Palin made one of their very first campaign stops in good ol' Colorao Springs. Seeing a once in a lifetime (ok...well, once every 4-8 years) opportunity, I obtained a ticket (but no press pass, darnit) and headed to the airport for the show.

The day started slow...I had to walk for blocks to get to the back of a line going back the way I just came...but everything went smoothly.




We even had some protesters to entertain along the way:




I was not prepared for the size of the crowd at all...news reports say 13,000 were in attendance, I'd say we had that easily.






The organizers passed out flags which made for some great color:





You can see the Colorado Springs Gazette photographer in the background of this shot and his version of it ran in the online edition of the paper today: http://www.gazette.com/articles/colorado_40263___article.html/springs_crowd.html Just for the record, I saw the shot first...he stole my idea ;)




We had the eye in the sky -- Colorado Springs finest watching from the rooftop. Hey...I think he's looking right at me!!!




Some clever signs:





Creative, but wouldn't Sarah have to be president for Trig to be the first baby? Maybe they're planning ahead. This crowd definitely had some Palin fans...my best laugh of the day was when the emcee asked 'who would you rather be in a foxhole with...bullets whizzing overhead...McCain or Obama?...a few in the crowd shouted 'Palin! She's a better shot!'...ha.




Anyway...with at least 13,000 people on hand, and all of them seemed to be in front of me ... I was pretty happy to get a few reasonably decent pictures of the stars of the show:












After a long wait, we heard some short speeches and they were whisked away to the waiting plane. Yes that is John McCain in the Suburban...






That's all folks! Back to awesome wedding & kid's portraits next!