More TEA Party Goodness

This is going to be more of a narrative from my end on this -- I'll post links to reactions on speakers and such when they get posted, because chances are I probably couldn't capture the excitement of hearing some of the speakers as much as those who write for Granite Grok or some of the other blogs. For now, this was my personal experience.

I left for Manchester around 4pm because I had to wait for my husband to get home so he could take over child care duties for the Little One. I've brought him to events in the past, but now that he's 19 months old and walking, I knew he wasn't going to sit still if I stuck him in a stroller for this one. Maybe next year.

Anyway, got there and went to immediately find Blogger's Row. I ran into Chan from Weekend Pundit (whom I hadn't seen since my first appearance on Meet The New Press), and also got to meet Paul Sand from Pun Salad and Chris Cameron from Radioactive Liberty and Angry Seafood. (Later in the night I had a really nice chat with the blogger from Take Back Orford, NH, who is now on the blogroll). I said my hellos to Skip Murphy from Granite Grok, and was asked by another tea party member where my son was since she had never seen me without him before.

I also ended up running into someone that I hadn't seen since the Sarah Palin visit in Laconia in 2008 -- she was standing right next to me during the event and we chatted it up for awhile before she showed up. (She's the blonde with her back to the camera that was behind me in the picture I've posted up here before of Palin signing my son's onesie) I told her that I still showed that picture off where I could, and that the little 2 month old she saw at the rally was now 19 months old and walking. Then I jokingly added, "Pray for me," which got her and Chan laughing.

During the evening, Skip would bring around people who were running for office in various locations and introduce them to us. My notes and cards are in the car which my husband has at the moment, so the only names I can remember right now are Ovide Lamontagne and Mary Landry. I'll update this post later with other people I met last night. But I was getting a kick out of it because I was starting to feel like a "real" reporter again.

I started to leave around 7 PM because I knew I was going to have to walk back to my car (I had to park it close to Elm Street two side streets away from Victory Park). Now, before the event, as I was going down Elm Street I started to hear a strange noise. I thought it was another major car issue so I tried to find a parking spot so I wouldn't be driving the car too far and I would figure out later.

When I got back to my car, it started out fine. So I started to drive, and heard the noise again. Before I could pull over, a gentleman came over to my car from the sidewalk and told me that my tire on the passenger's side was flat. So I pulled over on the next street and started to make the attempt to replace it.

Luckily while I was in the throes of getting started a group of people -- two men and a woman, whose names I didn't catch -- saw what I was about to do and offered to help. Which I gladly accepted since I had NO clue what I was doing. The woman let me use her cell phone to call my husband, and I let him know that I was going to be late because I had to get the tire changed. When they replaced the tire, they discovered that the spare needed more air, so they took it to the nearest gas station to fill it up and see if it made a difference.

So to those three people last night, again I thank you.

Because I had the spare, I had to drive home all the way to Franklin very carefully, so to keep myself from going over 50mph I stayed off the highway as much as I could. I felt like I was trying to drive in snow again.

So other than the flat tire last night, it was a good night overall. A lot of energy from the big crowd that was gathered there. No infiltrators that I could see.