Denver: Last night and this morning.

by: odum

Fri Aug 29, 2008 at 13:34:21 PM EDT

It should be said that as amazing as the show was inside (and by "amazing" in this post, I'm referring to my amazement that nothing went wrong), the logistics outside were horrific, and there were a lot of angry people walking for hours and miles to get in, or being funneled out exits way to small to accommodate gazillions of people. The crowd I was with actually pushed over the temporary fencing and made their own way out, and in true bleeding-heart liberal style, many lingered for a while to help the elderly or unsteady climb over the concrete barrier to exploit the hole created in the fence line and (thankfully) escape.

I staggered around after my own escape and got lost, wandering through a very large housing project. I was hoping to catch up with fellow Vermonters as I'd felt a bit cut off from them in the evenings, what with the logistics of taking the bus out to the place I stayed Tuesday and Wednesday nights - the condemned home of a medical marijuana growing renter who was in the process of being evicted (and who'd just had most of his plants stolen), and for whom I had to knock with a secret code to be allowed entry so he'd know I wasn't the cops. More on that later... or not.

So I caught up with some of the younger delegate set at the hotel the delegation had been staying at, but... er, well... the phrase "fifth wheel" comes to mind, so I quickly set off in search of more suitable downtime environments, finding bloggers JD Ryan and Philip Baruth  having drinks with Senator Shumlin. I settled in, and I think it was the most relaxed I've been all week.

So a collection of videos follow below the fold, but first here's Stevie Wonder and dancing Vermont legislators from Mile High Stadium...

Here's a sense of some of the sheer scale of what was up, including the logistic nightmare of getting in out of the stadium (including the aforementioned downed fence and mass escape at the end).

Here's the reaction of some of the Vermont delegation to Obama's appearance on the stage, as well as some comments afterwards.

...and in a final reminder that Vermont is the Rodney Dangerfield of states, here's a screen capture from an MSNBC slideshow of the night. Note the description below the picture...