I did a super-quickie trip to ABQ this weekend, which happened to coincide with an Obama rally. Crowd estimates were about 45,000, and I think I walked past every one of those people just trying to find the end of the line to stand in. After about 10 minutes at the end of the 1.2-mile-long line (not kidding! See Google map), we decided to hoof it back up to the field, and try to listen from across the street. At a certain point, everyone there on the outskirts just politely rushed the field.

The crowd was everything I love about New Mexico. In my immediate vicinity were vatos with slicked-back hair, aging hippies, Vietnamese immigrants, goofy-dancing kids and a family wearing “Pueblo Power” T-shirts.

When I was in, like, ninth grade, I went to a ZZ Top concert with my dad. Beforehand, one of his coworkers sad, “Cool, man, that should be a real all-terrain crowd.” The Obama rally was yet another “all-terrain crowd.”

Here’s a panorama of the folks around me: