American Idol Part Three

My alarm rang at 4am, at which point I vocalized, put on my makeup and clothes and checked out by 5am.

It took an hour to drive 5 miles to the Wachovia Center! It turned out that Philadelphia was the biggest turnout EVER for American Idol auditions. I sat in stopped traffic on I-95 for two miles. After finally exiting, another traffic jam welcomed me. All the Wachovia Center lots were full. I parked in the nearest lot a few blocks away, changed into my flip-flops for the walk (sexy Aldo shoes in the bag for later) and joined the parade of pre-dawn hopefuls.

Now it's about 6am. I get to the waiting area - I'm in pen #8. Each pen holds about 2000 people. (Eventually they ran out of pens and just put people in a huge parking lot.)