As in, I needed sleep.
Okay, so day 2 has most definitely been long and yet equally amazing.
So Ali and I did have a minor oversleeping hitch this morning, but we made it to the lobby with time to spare.
We arrived at CPAC right in time for our Television Somethin Somethin Seminar.
It was...umm??
=)
It definitly could have stood to be shorter. Whitney and I entertained each other.
After that, we lunched at McDonalds (evidentally, every D.C. McDonalds is connected to a CVS?)
where I met two new friends.
George and Lloyd were fellow CPACers.
They've been to every single CPAC since it began in the 1970s.
They were old. I helped them order fish sandwiches. =)
Then we heard from Mike Pence of Ohio, and I have to say, I kind of have a new favorite.
Mike Pence is one talented speaker.
He struck the perfect balance of saying what he needed to say while adding an emotional appeal.
Next it was Huckabee time.
I'm not gonna lie, I was more excited for Russel than actually seeing Mike Huckabee, though that too was quite an experience.
I wasn't quite as impressed as I was with Pence, but just the same, I got chills.
Okay..so then, here it was. The BIG moment.
Joe Scarborough.
Very possibly my second favorite Republican.
I snuck to the Diamond section, two rows away from Joe and what happens?
Ask me what happens.
Joe makes eye contact with me, points his finger and says: "You are the future of this party!"
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!
I almost peed my pants. I'm almost certain this means Joe and I are meant to be. (??) maybe?
Later, we had a group supper at Ollie's Trolley, good times, good times, and then went off to trek the "Mounument Mall."
I'm not going to lie, this was the moment I had been waiting for.
I sttod in front of the World War II Memorial, I was dwarfed by the Washington Monument.
and then....
There he was.
I walked up the path leading to the Lincoln Memorial and couldn't catch my breath.
I walked up the 2.5 million steps. (slight exaggeration)
And stood before the most humbling sight in my life.
The words of his Gettysburg Address and Second Innaugural Address were on either side of me and there I was.
I don't think anyone besides my mom could know what that moment meant to me and I won't cheapen it by trying to describe it, because I know I never could.
If Lincoln was what I was waiting for, the Vietnam Wall was nothing to skoff at.
I ran my hands along the names of over 50,000 men and women who died on foreign soil.
Each could have served under my dad when he was serving his tours.
They could have been his best friends.
It might have killed him when they died.
The Wall is such a personal moment that it's like everything else diasppears.
I'm blessed to be an American and I've never felt it quite so poignantly as I do in this place.
Hunter Stevens
P.S. I miss you Momma.
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