Turnout is expected to be about half the 1.8 million who showed up for Obama's first ceremony.
But that's not unusual for a two-term president.
Several Springfield-area residents, including some with personal connections to the president, plan to be there when the former state senator from Chicago begins another four years in the White House.
The Rodgerses attended in 2009, as well.
They're headed east by train.
"It was great to be there with all those people," Jeff said of the first ceremony. "Watching it on TV just puts a barrier between you and the inauguration."
The elder Rodgers, a computer programmer, wanted his son to be on hand for the swearing-in of the nation's first black president. Four years ago, after a two-hour wait for the Metro, they ended up too far back to see Obama. They'll be awake earlier this year.
"I want to try again," said Robert Rodgers, who said he was in pain for several days after constantly walking around D.C. But the excitement bested the soreness, he said.
Rodgers and his oldest son, Joe, 20, met Obama in Springfield in 2008, when then-candidate Obama introduced Joe Biden as his running mate. Then, at an event in St. Louis three days before the 2008 election, Obama autographed a photo taken at the first rally. Rodgers calls it a "prized possession."
Rodgers said he voted for Obama largely because of the Affordable Care Act.
He has three children who suffer from developmental disabilities, and he has diabetes.
At one point, Rodgers paid $1,200 per month to insure his family. He said the federal healthcare law that takes effect in 2014 will help off set some of those costs.
Rodgers knows his neighbors may not agree with his excitement at seeing Obama sworn in for another four years.
"I live in a right-wing territory," he said. "I just don't see where they're coming from."
Springfield connection
In early 2000, then-state Sen. Obama hired a new administrative assistant, Beverly Helm-Renfro of Springfield.
She worked with him until he resigned the seat in November 2004 to become a U.S. senator.
"He was such a wonderful person to work for," Helm-Renfro said.
When voters elected Obama to the U.S. Senate, she said she told him, "You're not finished yet," and she campaigned for her former boss in both 2008 and 2012.
"He just has a way of understanding what people are really feeling and the pressures that are upon us now. I think he gets it, and he's always been that way, even with his constituents when he was in the (Illinois) Senate," said Helm-Renfro, who saw the president and first lady on election night in Chicago.
"I think people believe in what he wants to do."
This time around, Helm-Renfro will take her daughter and son-in-law, Sheila and Dennis Hanson, for the couple's first visit to D.C.
"I still have my health to do this with, so it's enjoyable," she said. "I wouldn't have missed this one for anything."
Helm-Renfro said she views Obama's election and subsequent re-election as providing hope for a new perspective.
"I think it shows that this country has moved forward.
We're not there, but we've moved forward," she said. "And we can elect an African-American that can lead our country. I think for children that gives them their incentive to do what they need to in school, to go ahead and go to college and to get involved in politics."
'Anxious to be there'
Leland Grove resident Sean Smoot has worked with the Department of Justice, serves as director of the Illinois Police Benevolent and Protective Association and is treasurer of the National Association of Police Organizations.
He attended the 2009 inauguration with his wife, Teresa Smoot, a Leland Grove alderman.
"We were really taken back by the general spirit," Sean Smoot recalled. "On that particular day, people were extraordinarily nice."
Smoot talked with the Illinois delegation at the Democratic National Convention in September.
"It's kind of a nice thing to mark the end of that and also to celebrate the success of it," he said of this year's inauguration.
Springfield's Ellen Schanzle-Haskins was another attendee at the first Obama inauguration, and she'll go again next month. She said she's looking forward to the home state ball, where residents of both Hawaii and Illinois will join the Obamas.
Schanzle-Haskins campaigned for Obama during both of his presidential campaigns. She traveled to Wisconsin this year and to Indiana in 2008 to contact prospective voters. While Obama was an Illinois legislator, Schanzle-Haskins served as chief counsel for the Illinois Department of Transportation. She's now chief results officer for the Illinois Department of Labor.
"We just really love our president, and we're anxious to be there for the big event," Schanzle-Haskins said of herself and the friends she's going with, Susan Shea of Springfield and Carolyn Brown Hodge of Paris, Ill.
"I just believe that he is a man of great insight and leadership, and he's moving us into the right direction again."
New Congress, too
Shea is no stranger to the Statehouse, where Obama worked. She is director of aeronautics for IDOT and previously worked as education policy director for the Illinois Education Association.
She formerly led the Sangamon County Democratic Party.
Shea knows Obama and said she's been friends for years with the family of U.S. Rep.-elect Cheri Bustos, D-East Moline. She also worked with U.S. Rep.-elect Tammy Duckworth when the Hoff man Estates Democrat served as director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs starting in 2006, and she met Democratic Congressman-elect William Enyart of Belleville when he worked as adjutant general of Illinois.
In addition to the presidential inauguration, she and Schanzle-Haskins also will attend the congressional swearing-in ceremony Jan. 2.
Shea's no stranger to inaugurations, either. She attended both of President Clinton's ceremonies.
"When you stand there or you sit there and you watch the greatest nation in the whole world swear in its president, whether it's a change or it's the same, it is just an 'aha' moment that you don't want to miss," she said.
It became obvious early in Obama's career that he would be successful, Shea said. "He always had an air for greatness."
Shea was at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, when Obama debuted on the national stage with an inspirational speech.
As Obama visited the Illinois delegation afterward, she recalls thinking, "If ever there was another Abraham Lincoln, this is it."
Watching from home
No less enthusiastic about Obama's second term will be other local Democrats who went to Washington in 2009 but won't be doing so this go-round.
Springfield Ward 3 Ald. Doris Turner, the Sangamon County Democratic chair, celebrated the 2009 inauguration at the nation's capital. She won't make the trip this time.
Still, she said she'll be there in spirit.
"As I watched the president being sworn in, tears just came streaming down," she says of the first inauguration.
"(I felt) a mixture of pride and excitement and the realization of how significant this moment really was and how far our country had come."