Approximately three weeks ago, Erik and I woke up before the crack of dawn at 3:45 am on a Sunday … on purpose. All according to plan, we left Park Slope at approximately 4:30 am and enjoyed an endless subway ride (with half of New York still drunk from the night before) up to East Harlem, where we met up with dozens of fellow morning-people-for-a-day, eager to begin our trip to Washington, DC to participate in the March for America to promote immigration reform.

Our office had organized the trip for anyone interested in coming along, and I was all for it.

After a few hours of fitful bus-sleeping attempts, we pulled into a rest stop in Maryland for a stretch. Erik ordered a pecan caramel Cinnabon. I drooled.

I may have had a few pecans, but really I stuck to this masterpiece: peanut butter, cinnamon, and banana sandwiched between two slices of Rudy’s.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm …

With daylight well underway, we continued on for the final hourish of our journey.

And then we arrived!

There were tonnnnnnnns of people, and this was just to get on the Metro!

We arrived at the National Mall a few hours before the formal speeches began, so we had time to observe all the action taking place around us.

Erik got caught up in the emotion and the passion of the day:

And then we continued observing:

The speeches started just in time for me to need to escape from the crazy sun in order to avoid heat stroke. In a feat of semi-planned but mostly coincidental luck, we met up with Erik’s mom and stepdad who happened to be in DC that day, visiting from Minnesota:

We set off on a mission with them to check in at the Capitol for progress on the health care reform bill.

We couldn’t get close enough to find out anything (though we all know what happened by now!), so we headed back toward our group in preparation for the march.

And then we marched!

And made Tim Burton faces:

But in all seriousness, it was pretty cool to be involved in this momentous event for immigration reform right alongside the people who need it most!

And as a side note, the houses on the marching street were so pretty. Anyone want to give me one of them?

Hmmm, I just realized there was hardly any food in this post! The Cinnabon must have short-circuited my camera’s photographic capacity 😛

Have you ever been to DC for a march before? The last time I went was for the pro-choice rally with my mom and aunt when I was 5!