The Natchez Blog Arrives in Denver!

Up at 4 am - and I don't do mornings well. We arrived in Denver without any airplane mishaps. The day went downhill from there.

We got off the airport shuttle at the wrong hotel. But we had a great driver (more on him later). We called him, and he came back to get us.

We then discovered the significance of the Mississippi delegation, as the Democratic National Party assigns hotels to states. The closer you are to the Convention, the more important you are in their minds. Well, our hotel was in the boondocks - we actually think we may be in Wyoming. Our room was not ready, and we had to wait about an hour.

We didn't even unpack but needed to head back downtown to pick up our credentials. The Mississippi delegation gets theirs delivered to them every day at the hotel, but we have to pick ours up daily at the media credential center.

Denver is full of wonderful friendly local volunteers who are there to help you everywhere. However, we decided that the two working in our hotel had probably never ridden public transportation, because they gave us horrible directions. We did get a good view of Denver and now are well versed in the public transportation system. We also met many friendly law enforcement officers and transportation workers who helped these two lost southerners find their away around their city. They were the only ones to ask, since there was not a single local person to be found - they very smartly got the hell out of Dodge. It was a madhouse. Protesters all over, riot police in full gear, and thousands and thousands of lost souls.

We finally arrived at the Credentialing Center five minutes before they closed at 5 pm. Then we found out that one of our credentials was missing. Other people around us were acting pompous and important, and they did not get their credentials. We smiled sweetly, poured on the southern charm, and acted so helpless. We got ours.

We were supposed to go to a meeting with other State Bloggers at 3:30. Needless to say, we totally missed that. We discovered later that only 3 showed up - all the rest had various horror stories of delays.

We finally came back to the hotel bar (medicinal purposes only). We did get to talk to some of the Mississippi Delegation. We also took some little videos along the way today and posted them quickly just now. They still need some editing and some descriptions.

So we spent the whole day here and got a hotel room and a credential. I did not get to put fingers to the keyboard until just now. But we are definitely ready for tomorrow! Oh, one neat thing. Lots of people noticed the Natchez T shirts and said wonderful things. One good story that we'll post tomorrow when we hope to be slightly more coherent.

Right now, I'm going to take a long bath and crash. Night night!

PS I forgot to mention that a tornado went right by our hotel and no one seemed to notice - not even the media, who were all covering the Convention.