Here's a tip on how to cure Metro headaches: Dig deep.
Attendees at tonight's Black Tie and Boots Ball at the Wardman Park Marriott were worried about being stranded after the ball after the witching hour. No problem. The hotel, the Texas State Society, the Hotels Association of Washington, D.C., and the Washington, D.C. Convention and Tourism Corp. came up with $18,000 each -- totaling the $54,000 needed to keep the system open until 3 a.m.
The University of Texas longhorn mascot Bevo, tended by senior Wales Madden of Amarillo, has a bed away from the cold in a closed-in loading dock at the Wardman Park Marriott, which is hosting a Black Tie and Boots Ball tonight.
(Susan Biddle -- The Washington Post)
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Bill Hanbury, chief executive of the Convention and Tourism Corp., said, "There needs to be a different approach" to funding late hours for special events. He added that "it's incumbent upon Metro to be sensitive to the needs of workers and visitors." Metro spokesman Steven Taubenkibel said the Presidential Inaugural Committee is paying for the system to remain open Thursday night until 3 a.m. Friday.
"Cosseted" is a good word during a week when temperatures are plunging into the teens -- cosseted as in comforted, cared for, pampered. The Mandarin Oriental Hotel is doing a bit of cosseting for its guests tomorrow, with a "parade survival kit": hand warmers, Chapstick, bottled water, Tylenol, Alka-Seltzer, a pocket-size packet of tissues, a disposable camera, along with mints, a bag of nuts and red, white and blue M&Ms.
Bevo the Texas longhorn could have used some of those hand warmers (hoof warmers?). For the mascot of the University of Texas at Austin, it's too cold to spend the night in an open-air Virginia stable, as planned. The 3-year-old steer with the 55-inch horn span is bedding down next to a bale of hay in a closed-in loading dock at the Wardman Park Marriott .
Bevo XIV, christened Sunrise Studly before his coronation last year as the UT mascot, has made only one other big trip, journeying to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., for the Longhorns' victory over Michigan on New Year's Day.
Bevo, who won't be in the parade but will make an appearance at the annual Black Tie and Boots Ball tonight, had to come in early to have his credentials checked by the District's Animal Disease Prevention and Food Safety Department.
Colby Mueck, a communication studies senior and president of the Silver Spurs, the University of Texas student group responsible for the mascot's care and transport, recalled that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals objected to Bevo's appearance at the inauguration four years ago. With papers in order this year, the Silver Spurs are ready for the animal rights group.
"He's getting better care than we're getting," Mueck said. "He's our top priority."
Bonafides had to be in order for numerous creatures great and small that migrated to town this week, including four small armadillos from Texas.
"I've never seen one of those except dead," Paige Marvel of Baltimore said as she strolled by the armadillos' booth with two friends.
The armadillos came to Washington with all their accessories on their backs. Not so the many two-legged visitors.
Richard Kane, 35, president and chief executive of International Limousine Service Inc., says his drivers tell him people are hauling in more luggage for this inauguration.
Kane takes it to mean that folks are planning to stay longer than usual -- "and that," he says, "is good for the city, for the restaurants, hotels, limousine services."
This is the eighth inauguration for Kane's company, and the traffic tie-ups are the worst, the result, he says, "of micromanaging by federal agencies."
The St. John's College High School Junior Reserve Officer's Training Corps regiment won't be riding in limousines; the regiment will be marching tomorrow, for the first time since the 1950s. The band and drill team marched for the inauguration of President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, but not the entire regiment.
The marchers will look a bit different than they did way back when: St. John's went coed in 1991, and now 103 of the 361 members are female. Among them is the program's regimental commander, Cadet Col. Alexandra Kennedy, a senior who lives in the District.
Staff writers Steven Ginsberg and Dana Hedgpeth contributed to this report.
