4:55 a.m. - The bus leaves a Baltimore airport hotel. I’m on board with a group of Ritenour High School students. They’ve worked hard to get here today. All of them are part of an organization called Partners in Achievement. They work to close the achievement gap between White and minority students.

7:17 a.m. - After walking and walking and pushing our way through massive crowds, we reach the mall. My headphone cord gets stuck on a bush in the dark mass. A student is nice enough to untangle me so I don’t rip the cord. Our spot is pretty close for the non-ticketed area, and we can see a jumbotron well.

8:53 a.m - We wait in the cold.

8:54 a.m. - Still waiting. I pull my fingers out of my gloves and make fists to keep my fingers working. I do a lot of jumping up and down, dancing and other strange movements to keep the blood flowing. About half of the group leaves to look for warmth. We don’t see them again.

12:42 p.m. - The show is done. The trash remains. I leave the National Mall, headed for the bureau 1.5 miles away.

2:15 p.m. - I make it to the office after walking south all the way to the Washington Channel and west to 24th Street to get north to 1025 Connecticut Avenue. (For those of you who don’t know D.C., this is massively out of the way.) People fill the streets.

9:15 p.m. - The video I shot is posted.