Trump was not scheduled to speak until 7pm but we decided to be there by 2pm. Even arriving that early I had to park a half mile from the school. Walking from where we parked there were numerous street vendors much like a NASCAR event all selling various types of Trump paraphernalia. Once we arrived at the school it took a bit to find where we were entering. Even that early there were still at least 20 people in the VIP line. I could see at least three general public lines, this is a picture of just one of them.
This is a shot of of my good friend Jack as we waited in line.
At 4pm they started letting people in, we were given wrist bands and went through a metal detector. On the other side of the metal detector was an agent dressed in full combat gear searching people. After I passed through I walked up to him and raised my arms just like everyone before me had done, he then waved me on past, and people say I am intimidating.
We were then escorted to our seats which were just to the left of the stage. Apparently this is the area that the governor and other dignitaries would be sitting. As we were walking down the stairs I asked our escort what the yellow wrist bands we were given meant (they weren't visible under the sleeves of our jackets). He stopped and said oh you have those, you can sit wherever you want. Jack told him he wanted to sit directly behind the stage. He then passed us off to another escort that seated us in the first row behind the stage.
The next three hours were fairly mind numbing as we waited for the rally to start. With so many people in that area there was no cellular service and about once every 15 minutes our escort would move us either to the left or the right along the row we were sitting in as more people were seated. In the end after moving at least five times we ended up in the same exact location we initially sat at. During this time MAGA hats were handed out along with multiple sign boards that we were instructed to enthusiastically wave during the rally. There was also much discussion about placement of children and removal of various adults from the area immediately behind the podium.
About 15 minutes before the rally was to start our escort came over and informed us if we needed to use the restroom we should now and for the next two hours we would need to stand.
All of the pictures I took were on a loaner Iphone 6 which didn't work well with the stage lights pointed directly at us, but I still managed to get a few good pictures.
Here you can see the teleprompter, this was right before Vice President Pence gave his speech.
In this picture just next to Trumps left elbow is Medal of Honor recipient Sammy Davis. Trump actually pointed at him when he walked out and saluted him. Prior to the rally start he had a continuous line of people wanting to shake his hand and meet him, going all the way up the stairs on to the mezzanine.
This was taken with no zoom, we were that close.
Trump actually stayed on que with his speech for the most part. It was neat to be able to see what he was reading and when he went off on his own. During his speech he brought out Bobby Knight, but before he came out Trump went off on his own for so long that they brought a chair into the entry tent for Bobby to sit on.
One other thing bad about where we were sitting was the acoustics, basically I could only hear about 50% of what the speakers were saying, so I tried to follow along with the teleprompter.
After the rally once I got to my truck, my phone exploded with emails, texts etc. as it started getting service again. I got messages from people who said they saw me on TV and some even took pictures of their TV and sent them to me. Tania recorded the rally on TV and I watched it last night to see how much I had actually missed. Each news feed had a different camera angle which dictated wither Jack, David and I were visible or not.
This morning Trump tweeted this picture.
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