The kids were from out of town, and their minder was preparing for the worst as she hustled them on to the downtown Metro. "You know where you are staying? All of you? Just in case we get separated," she asked.
The group of mini-patriots, all muffled up against the bitter weather, flags at the ready, echoed back: "Friendship Heights".
In the rain-drenched streets crowds streamed towards Pennsylvania Avenue, the demonstrators mixing uneasily with the Texan hordes with their in-your-face Stetsons, cowboy boots and stickers proclaiming their undying love for their President. Many were dressed in tuxedos and black ties for the countless receptions they would be attending later. A banner proclaimed "Billionaires for Bush". I'm really not sure it was ironic.
But it was roughest on their womenfolk - that's what they call them down there. The furs and pashminas and their wilting high-stacked hairdos seemed to invite heckles.
At the corner of 14th Street, in the middle of the road, two young women danced together, gently swaying, blocking the way for a limo that seemed to stretch half a block. Its driver got out and respectfully asked them to move. No dice, as the queue of gleaming Cadillacs began to grow. (Incidentally, the collective noun for a limo is an "inauguration" of limos). Eventually a cop interrupted the dancers.
As many as 300,000 wended their way through the tight security to catch a glimpse of the 10,000-strong parade of marching bands, floats and high-kicking girls. A good 20,000 were not celebrating, a coalition of coalitions protesting at everything from the "theft of our election" to gay rights and Israeli aggression.
But it was good-humoured with few arrests, even when one contingent seized "for the people" a reviewing stand reserved for $50-a-seat Republican supporters.
At the corner of C Street the cops caught the mood. Demonstrators frustrated by delays at security barriers broke into song: "All we are saying, is give peace a chance." To which the response came from Washington's finest: "All we are saying is please move it along."
Placards attacked Judge Clarence Thomas, the only black on the Supreme Court, "the only black vote counted". They ridiculed the "compassionate conservatism" of "Dubya, the lord high executioner".
And drums beat time as a snake of young chanters weaved they way through the crowd. Boom, boom, "Ain't no power like the power of the people" Boom, boom, "The power of the people gonna stop George Bush". Boom, boom.
A group of students from Ohio Wesleyan University wore pirate hats and carried signs reading "Bush plundered our vote".
"We are all unified behind a fear and loathing of corporate control in our country," said David Levy (43), a think-tank policy researcher and organiser of the Justice Action Movement, a DC-based coalition. "We're environmentalists, human rights campaigners, poverty advocates, feminists, but we all agree that the electoral system is fundamentally undemocratic because of the influence of big money."
"In the last 20 years, the US government has more thoroughly been a representative of the corporate elite," said Brian Becker (48), co-director of the International Action Centre, whose members demonstrated against the IMF in Prague and the WTO in Seattle and were in Washington for the inauguration.
"There's been a transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top. This goes under the name of globalisation. It affects working people and poor people, and it's inherently unjust."
But hundreds of pro-Bush protesters also marched on Saturday, including a large group that gathered in front of the Supreme Court building and sang God Bless America.
Emily Mack, an ardent Bush supporter from southern Maryland, was among a pro-Bush group on Pennsylvania Avenue. She carried a sign reading "Out Arkansas trash, in Texas class".
"They had their eight years. It's our turn," Mack said. "I'll tell you, I'm not on medication but I've been really depressed for the last eight years."
"It's our turn" was the unofficial theme of the 10 official, unapologetically triumphalist, in augural balls on Saturday night, attended by 50,000 Republican supporters and hangers-on.
A lot of screaming and whooping, particularly of the Texan yee-hah variety, a lot of interminable queues for drink, food and coats. George W. and the First Lady dropped in on each of them to dance a short twirl, although the President admitted he is not a natural.
"I want you to know," he confided to the press at the 12,000strong Texas-Wyoming bash (at which boots were de rigueur), "it's hard to dance on a carpet. That's my first excuse."
The Cheneys did the rounds, too. Dick Cheney told the story of his "Republican marriage", explaining that Eisenhower had dispatched his father to Wyoming where Cheney later met his wife, Lynne. He said he had told her: "If not for the Republican victory in 1952 . . . she would have married someone else. And she said "Right, and he'd be vice-president."