The Papal Chase-- in detail

This was such a once in a lifetime event for us that I wanted to catalog it in detail.
We left the house at around 7:30 on Wednesday morning.
We drove into DC to Pentagon City where we parked and boarded the Metro.

Took the Metro to the Foggy Bottom-GWU station.

Staked our claim Found our spot at Washington Circle around 9:30 and began our wait.

We brought activities for the kids to do:

Alright-- truth be told; I didn't have it together enough before the event to have done the posters ahead of time, so we had to bring the stuff with us. But, hey, it all worked out...

There were plenty of security folks: secret service, police, bomb dogs, motorcycle police, helicopters, etc.

The boys were well entertained:

We managed to catch up with our eldest who went with a local ConQuest group.

They were all there in bright yellow shirts. You could see 'em comin' from a mile away:

Then the excitement began to build as The Holy Father started to come around the turn. He paused for a few seconds just before he entered the the road where we were. I got all teary eyed and my heart began to race.. then his driver must have wanted to make up for lost time, because it seemed like he just raced by. :-( But not before I snapped these:

The lighting was terrible for taking pics-- I was staring into direct sunlight, but it's him! And we were there--20 feet away. And it was awesome. I even caught a picture of him waving at the monkeys. At this point on the route, mine are the only littles in his line of sight. They were waving and holding their bright yellow signs. Dh's video confirms it.


When it was over, the monkeys were a bit disappointed-- they thought he would go by at Disney parade speed. They wanted it to last longer but were still thrilled that they saw him and he waved to them. Only the princess was still bottom lipped about the whole thing. "Momma, I taut I cud hug him. I wanna hug him."
Me too Sister...