Last Friday after work I met up with Sarah and Annie, and we boarded a Peter Pan bus to Pennsylvania to spend the weekend doing voter canvassing for Obama's campaign. The trip started off inauspiciously. Just as we got to the head of the line to board the bus at Port Authority, the driver said there was no more room. But after a recount (hanging chads!) the driver said he could take a party of three, which meant us! Success! We arrived in Philadelphia and then took a metro train to Media, Pennsylvania.
A friend of Sarah's family was nice enough to allow us to crash at his house. The next morning we woke and before heading out, we explored the house grounds. It turned out that we were at "Dino" Don's (a pretty famous dinosaur expert and author) residence! He also happened to be a consultant on the set of Jurassic Park so there were props from the movie all over his house, which was like a mini-museum.
We were freaking out with each new discovery, like this Brontosaurus. Here's CJ who drove in from DC, Sarah, and Annie.
Another view.
Top this Sarah Palin! We hunted us a dino!
Haha. A random punching bag. Kate: We should get one of these in our apartment!
Annie, me and CJ about to head out door-to-door in our assigned neighborhood in Delaware County with our talking points and to discuss the candidates with interested residents! Note the unintentional matching t-shirts... Terrible, but pretty funny.
The Obama girls. Needless to say these two were invited into people's homes a number of times. CJ and I? Zero.
After a long day of walking we arrived back at the Obama headquarters in Media (yup, Media), Pennsylvania to drop off the results.
Counting up the responses...
CJ eating or something. Haha.
We signed our names on the volunteer board.
I found me some prime real estate on the board.
Jumping for Obama!
On Sunday morning we woke up and explored Don's casa some more. He owned a couple friendly sheep! Goats!
Sheep! Goats!
Sheep! Goats!
Close up!
Don told us to go check out the swimming pool where there was a special surprise. Can you see it in this picture? No. Lets go closer...
T-REX!
While I was admiring T-Rex I noticed this deer staring at me.
Me with my all time favorite dinosaur.
And of course remember these claws from Jurassic Park?
Bam! Velociraptor!
Like I said earlier, the house was a museum in of itself. This sign was in one of the bathrooms. The following night as we sat around the fireplace, Don gave us the interesting historic background of the residence including some pretty crazy past owners. Haha. Feel free to hit me up for details on that. Pretty amazing stories.
This was in the same bathroom.
Close up of the explanation. Interesting, right?!
More fossils.
There was also this awesome electric truck car thing.
Sarah, Don, Val, Annie and CJ.
And we took this last group photo before we headed out to do one last round of canvassing.
On the drive to our designated neighborhood we got a wee bit lost. Although I was greatly entertained by this sign: No Name Food Store!
In conclusion: I'm trying to avoid hyperbole, but this was one of the more memorable weekends I've ever had and the actual canvassing itself was an empowering experience. I won't go into the specifics here but it was an overwhelmingly positive effort, and yet at the same time a heavy reminder at how much more work and interaction is needed in many neighborhoods. That said, it was truly amazing to see how much could be accomplished in just a ten minute conversation with an undecided or conservative voter. I strongly urge everyone to get involved in this. You won't regret it.
Thanks again to Don and Val for their wonderful and unexpected hospitality!