Trains and Parking

I had to work today, as it's my turn for on-call coverage for the next two weeks. I was down in Glen Eagle, and had 4 tickets I needed to close at a site in Wynnewood. The drive was okay, it's nice not having to deal with the normal traffic patterns that occur during the work week. As I arrived at Wynnewood, I knew there was something up. There's a train station that's right across the street from the shopping center that I was going to, and it was packed with people. The local rock station, WYSP, was onsite with a trailer and there were signs for McCain, Obama, and Hilary littering the parking lot. There were two or three police officers onsite directing traffic, and people were everywhere. As I was stopped at a green light by one officer, I saw an Amtrak train pulling into the station. Now this shouldn't have seemed odd, except that this station was for SEPTA, not AMTRAK. The last car was different, and had patriotic bunting on the railing. I saw the train stop, and a roar from the crowd as a figure emerged from the car. I didn't get a good look, I shrugged and pulled into the parking lot to get my work done. After circling the lot for 20 minutes, getting the finger from someone for backing into my well-sought after parking space, and going into the store I finally figured out what all the hub-bub was about from the first employee I saw who asked, "Did you see him?" "See who?" was my reply.



Yep, I found out later in the day that Obama was doing a whistle-stop train tour from Philadelphia to Harrisburg and that Wynnewood was the first stop on that tour. One of his regional campaign offices was just up the street from the station, so I guess it made sense for him to stop there and greet some of his volunteers and such. The figure I saw emerging was Mr. Obama stepping from the train, as the news reports of his attire matched the figure I saw stepping from the last car. I thought about heading over to the station to see what was up before I knew who it was on the train, but I needed to get work done and didn't have the time to screw around. If I had known it was him, I probably would have taken the time to at least see him speak, but that's all hindsight at this point. Regardless, the parking lot when I left the work site was littered with cars parked in all sorts of places, all getting tickets from the nice police who were no longer directing traffic as they weren't in "legal" spots. That was probably the funniest part of the afternoon.

Enjoy.