We arrived the night of January 5th. DC was oddly quiet. We had to share a hotel room for 4 of us as we all were financially tight at the time. It was a close-quarters, but we made it work. We left the hotel to see some of the sights that evening, taking pictures of the Capital building lit up at night. We spoke to police on duty, and they seemed friendly and answered some questions for us. Nobody else was there and it felt strange. We headed to get some food (which was hard since most places were closed). We finally found a food truck run by some nice Pakastani folks and got some grub. While we were standing in line, a group of US soldiers appeared kind of out of nowhere. We had veterans in our group who confirmed they were legit military but found it odd that they weren't wearing any distinguishing patches. They were all young with the exception of the two higher ranking officers (we assume because the others were deferring to them). The only patch we eventually saw was on a ruck sack one of the soldiers was carrying...US Space Force. Our veteran buddies approached them and said what branch and unit they had served in and asked who these guys were with. They replied, "Thanks for your service, but we can't say. We're just here on orders." They genuinely seemed to regret not giving more info but kept looking at their superiors. We then watched them all descend into a parking garage of a non-descript building. We headed back to our hotel where we saw several groups in the lobby and in front of the building. We got some odd vibes from some, but many seemed like normal folks. We got to bed late that evening as the excitement of the coming day kept us up a while (not to mention some snoring).
I will continue with a Part 2 when I have more time today...
It’s really interesting hearing other people’s testimony of what occurred on that day. Mine was completely opposite to yours. Everybody at the hotel was friendly, and very kind, even the extra security in the police out front. I was alone at the age of 58, and I brought a kick scooter with me because I was having problems with one of my feet and I knew I wouldn’t be able to walk all that way back-and-forth. I do remember it being very cold, and I hung out in the same area as you the Washington monument. I found the crowd to be electrifying, lots of different characters, people dressed in red, white and blue, people praying, people preaching, and people singing the national anthem. However; I did leave early and I went back to the hotel like you did. So I was not at the capital when everything popped off. I feel that was God protecting me. But once I saw that what was going on down there, I grabbed my scooter, and I went straight down there. By this time, all the main commotion had died off. I did find it interesting why people were climbing the walls with ropes when all you had to do was skirt the building off to the left, and there was an open staircase there that somebody easily could ascend. I stayed until curfew, because after curfew, you could be arrested, and I wasn’t about to be going to jail for anything. I attribute it to one of the best states I’ve ever had in my life. I flew out the next morning, and was able to get out of there before they started taking people off planes. To this day, I will remember it as one of the best days of my life, and I enjoyed every bit of it. Hoping others had the same experience as me. Also, on a sidenote, I had no problem finding food at the hotel, or on the streets there were food trucks everywhere. So I’m shocked that you weren’t able to even find a cup of coffee, but I don’t know what hotel you were staying in. BEST DAY EVER 🙌🇺🇸
https://patriots.win/p/11S0WzO6bJ/i-am-not-ashamed--i-share-this-p/c/
Sorry for all my cussing in that post above, at the time I was just barely getting back to the Lord. 🙏