LEWISTON – Judith Hopkins says she expects to sleep better after a grueling round-trip bus ride to Washington that will rob her of two nights’ sleep.

Hopkins is planning to attend the Thursday inauguration of President Bush’s second term in office. She won’t be celebrating. She’ll be protesting.

The 57-year-old Pownal resident said she and roughly 100 other like-minded Maine demonstrators plan to attend so-called counter-inaugural events.

Hopkins said she will be standing alongside the inaugural parade route. When Bush passes by, she and others will turn their backs on him, literally, something they say he has done figuratively to the American middle class in his first term. The effort is part of a national movement aimed at nonviolent political expression.

Many Mainers are packing their bags this weekend to make the trip south: Some view it as a happy occasion, others see it as a day of mourning.

Hopkins, a retired nurse, said she is appalled by most of Bush’s public policies, including health care and prescription drugs. She said she finds it hard to believe he was re-elected given his track record on issues critical to people like herself.

“I’m finding so many things about George Bush that are so frightening. I don’t understand how so many people can vote against their own interests,” she said.

Never before a political activist, the mother of four boys said she felt she had to do something when Bush ordered American troops to invade Iraq.

Rosemarie Butler, of Lewiston, said she will be standing along the parade route cheering on the man she worked to elect in 2000 and again in November. She headed up the Bush campaign volunteers in Androscoggin County, where she serves as GOP state committeewoman.

Butler also plans to attend the inaugural ball scheduled for Mainers and will be there watching with pride as Bush takes the oath of office for the second time at a swearing-in ceremony at the Capitol.

While in Washington, Butler said she and other Maine Republicans have been invited to breakfast with Maine’s U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins at their office building.

The wife of a World War II veteran, Butler said she hopes to see the newest war memorial while there. She’ll be taking the trip with other county committeewomen because her husband can’t travel.

This will be her first time back in Washington since 1988, when she attended the inaugural events of the first President Bush.

Randy Bumps of Minot, who ran Bush’s campaign in Maine, is heading to Washington a couple of days early for an organizational meeting of the Republican National Committee. He expects to see Bush there and maybe have a chat.

“Hopefully, I’ve have the opportunity to meet with him,” Bumps said. Although Bush lost in both Maine congressional districts, Bumps said “the president devoted significant resources to organizing grass roots here.”

Also expected to show their support are nine Maine college students who worked to galvanize young Republicans on Maine’s college campuses.

They plan to attend “America’s Future Rocks Today,” a youth concert organized by the twin Bush daughters, Barbara and Jenna.

Oliver Wolf, a junior at Bates College and vice president of the Maine College Republicans, said he is “really excited” about going to Washington to party for the president.