I took Friday off from work & drove to my Cousin’s house in The Plain’s, VA. Sh lives about 65 miles west of DC off I-66. I knew the first time I saw something posted online about the Women’s March I would be in DC for it ! At first I was going to use one of the buses from Charlotte. I looked several times & missed my chance to get on one of those.
So I woke up Saturday morning at 12:57 AM, I couldn’t go back to sleep. I might of napped a few times for 30 minutes ! 6:00 AN I got up got dressed and out the door by 6:15 ! Traffic on I-66 was pretty heavy for a Saturday !
I got to the Station in Vienna/Fairfax and the parking lot was almost full. I found a spot at the outer edge of it. People were streaming into the station. I got in a ticket line. There were so many people moving around it was mass chaos ! It took about 30 minutes to get a ticket.
When I finally got up to the platform the train was leaving & the front cars were jam packed, I noticed the rear cars had more room so I walked to the last car. I got a seat when I got on the next train. We left the station @ 7:48. The people were all just so friendly & helpful. we all chatted away on the trip in. I got to the Federal Center street exit at 8:50. I started trying to figure out were the dailykos meet up spot was. I spotted a Dailykos sign and walked over & said hi. Kascade Kat was there with friend’s and a few kossacks !
They wanted to wait to see if more people showed up. I would guess it was 9:15 when we started to walk over to the March area. The whole time you were in a sea of people ! This sea of people existed the entire day. I decided to try & get to a place were I could get a picture.
This was the first picture at about 9:45 ! So I tried finding another spot where I could see a screen !
I found a spot and stayed there till after noon before I had to get walking around because my back was killing me from standing in one spot.
the TV screen was to the right. Finally about 10:15 they started with the long list of speakers. All the speakers had cool theme’s about the march. Some were organizers, One had her Baby over night & was there with her daughter in arm to speak ! I had moved to another spot when Sen. Kamala Harris spoke. She made you Californian’s Proud with her speech IMO. Maxine Walters was next up. I thought she was good to. She used short sentence asking questions about the Deplorable Cabinet !
All this time standing in the crowd you are stepping on each others toes! Bumping Elbows & buts ! A group of people would want to move, so the first person would led & each behind would hold onto the next and they would look like a caterpillar going thru the crowd. It was amazing ! Everyone was so good about people moving around, only a few would complain !
I liked this sign ! I also liked how she did it !
I got over to the spot around 2:00. By then the crowd started yelling lets March after each speaker.
it was about 2:30 when they announced that there was so many of us the march direction was going to change. What happened was people were packed along the March route ! There was no way to move ! So they told us to walk to a street & head north to Independence !
It took one hour to move from the spot above to the street ! Then we got to the Mall which was still fenced off ! They had taken a few panels out every 200’ or so so we could get across. the whole time you are barely moving in a north direction. We were approaching Pennsylvania when the police started dividing the crowd. Some moved to the west south of the Whitehouse and other were sent a block east to get on Penn ! I choose to go to Penn !
I’m not sure where I was when I took this picture
It was at an intersection. In every direction it was a sea of people !
I spot this Paul Ryan sign and the lady next to me says:
I want to punch Paul Ryan in the face
Then I’m walking next to a lady who had to young girls & was from Chicago ! She was with a group of 13 that had rented a van & drove 13 hours on Friday to be there. This lady said they would stop at a rest area & there were people in vans doing the same thing ! Heading to DC !
She whispered to me that her to Daughters kept asking why the signs said pussy grabber ! She told me she finally told them about an hour earlier why ! They said why would anyone do that !
Then we got to Trump International ! The crowd was Chanting
Welcome to your first day ! We are not going away !
So now we are to the Whitehouse ! The sea of people started going in all directions. I found this spot were people were leaving their signs !
lots of signs with wording like this
Had to get this one !
So I’m looking for the next place to go. I notice the people were starting to push over the fences to get across big areas blocked of on the south side of the white house !
I thought this spot was dangerous! So I got a few people to help me pull the fence out from under a pole it was hung up on so it would lay down !
it’s mass chaos everywhere still, but you have room now !
So by now it’s approaching 5:00 pm. I start figuring my way back to metro
I get the Metro @ Federal Triangle
More signs ! I think the signs being left behind is sorta cool ! But I’m sure we will be hearing about the mess we made ! ALL garbage can’s were over flowing also.
The other thing I think we will hear about is when Madonna said she’d like to blow up the Whitehouse !
Metro is packed again !
I had a very amazing day in DC ! Awesome x 1000 doesn’t do it justice. The people were great under the circumstances ! I am so friggen happy I went !
Boatsie posted a story about April 29th there would be an Environment March on DC & I will BE THERE !
#resist