Joe Biden became our president at noon, Eastern time which is 11:01 Central time (here in Austin, Texas). At 11:01 I breathed a huge and grateful sigh of relief... and noted that my blood pressure dropped 20 points.

 

The point in time, today, at which I felt like I could stop holding my breath.

 

I can hardly wait to go out today and photograph in a free democracy again. It feels as though we turned a giant ship just in time to avoid the nastiest iceberg I could imagine. 

I'll celebrate with family tonight but after I type this I'll head out and walk with a camera in my hands and hope in my heart. That's my idea of a personal celebration.

* Added after 5 pm.  Was just at our friendly, neighborhood wine shop (Twin Liquors) thinking I'd duck in and get a really nice bottle of Champagne to have with our celebratory dinner this evening. I don't know why I thought I'd be the only one in our neck of the woods to have this idea. I ran into half my neighbors there. All of them had ecstatic smiles on their faces and bottles of bubbly in their hands, waiting to get rung up. I guess we're not the only ones in our zip code who are planning to celebrate tonight. 

Went by the state capitol today and ran into a camera crew from one of the local TV stations. I asked them, "Where are all the crazies today?" They laughed and told me that three people from Trump-Land showed up to protest. The protesters hung out for about 30 minutes but as there were dozens and dozens of National Guard soldiers with automatic weapons on the other side of the gate, and no one outside the gate to yell at, the protesters crammed into their rusty and bumper sticker covered Ford Pinto and went off to find a Denny's. 

All in all it's shaping up to be a really good day.