A day on the tarmac
By B.J. Reyes
The eagle has landed!
President-elect Barack Obama and his family arrived in the islands today for a holiday vacation that is expected to last through Christmas and possibly up to New Year’s Day.
Obama has no public events scheduled during his stay here.
What that means for the local media is a lot of standing around, and always from a safe distance away. For Obama’s originally-scheduled 3:45 p.m. arrival, we in the local press corps were in place on the tarmac by a United Airlines hangar shortly after 2 p.m. (Special thanks to Mike Navares, general manager for United’s Hawaii operations, for filling us in with some details about Obama’s charter.)
The afternoon in pictures:
^^The fenced-in media pen.
^^ The president-elect’s plane arrives shortly after 3 p.m.
^^ The motorcade assembles.
^^ The traveling press corps exits from the rear of the plane.
^^ Obama makes his way off the plane with daughter, Sasha, by his side. His wife, Michelle, and other daughter, Malia, follow from the door of the plane. (Click the image to view it full size.)
