Disneyland for two political science nerds

Yes. We are insane. We took 5 kids to a political rally. It was hot. It was crowded. It was loud. It was SO worth it!

Earlier in the week I had seen on the news that there was going to be a McCain/Palin rally in Old Mesilla New Mexico which is only a half hour away from our house. Having lived in Utah most of my life I had never been to something like this before. We had planned on trying to go after Garrison's birthday party. We were thinking that it might be too late but then Conal ended up behind the McCain motorcade and we decided that we still had time to make it. So, although we were totally unprepared, we put all the kids back in the van and headed to Las Cruces.

When we got there we found out that we were even more unprepared than we originally thought. We were supposed to have tickets! Um, oops?? So we decided to stay outside of the fence for a while, listen, and see if we could catch a glimpse of anything. As we were standing there one of the security people took one look at Conal, Me and the kids and motioned us to come over. He said "Do you guys have any protest signs?" and we laughed and said "no" and he said "well if you do, this is the biggest ruse I've ever seen" as he motioned to all of the kiddos and then waved us on in. As a side note, there is no way I would drag 5 young kids to a rally just so that I could get in to protest a candidate. SO not worth it! ha ha

So we went into the plaza at Old Mesilla, a place that we have been to so many times and it was totally transformed. If it weren't for the big gazebo, it would have been totally unrecognizable to me. They had a crane with a huge flag:

and it was packed with people and political signs:

We didn't have that great of a view but hey----beggars can't be choosers right? (Check out the Secret Service guy up top)

I took a picture of this lady's shirt because I thought it was so funny that it had so many different causes on it. Plus I took it for my Dad since it has a "drill now" sticker, a "global warming is a lie" sticker and a "fair tax sticker".

Conal and I had a blast "booing" the prospect of socialism, laughing with everyone else at the "Jose the Electrician" sign (not to be confused with Joe the Plumber) and the "Maggie the nurse" sign and cheering for LOWER taxes.

Yes, I have to say, for 2 political science nerds, it was a great day out. The bonus was that the kids couldn't have been better. And if this is our last time ever to Old Mesilla, I have to say that it was well spent.