What a huge day today!

We arrived on the National Mall shortly after 9:00 this morning. By that time, the hustle and bustle of the day started to pick up and both tourists and locals were out in full force. Since we had thirteen tents all packed into a fifteen passenger van, we were given a super cool permit thingy to put in our front window that allowed us to drive on the National Mall. Not many people can say they've done that before!

Once we checked in and were given our assignments on where we were supposed to set up, we began the long process of unloading the van, and getting the tents where we wanted them. It was quite the site to see what our space (which was very large) looked like before and after setting up the tents! Naturally, after setting up thirteen tents, we had things down to a science. We also had a lot of extra people come help us out, since we had so many tents. They were AMAZED at how many tents came from one area, and enjoyed walking around and looking at them all.

After getting all the tents up and situated, we then took some time to walk around and see what other tents looked like. Yeah...they were pretty amazing. It was fascinating to see the tents done by professional artists, and also tents that were done by children. They all carried the same message, but all had a different way of depicting it.