Last weekend, my mother and I took a charter bus to Washington DC to attend the now-famous Women’s March. We made our saucy posters, donned our nasty sweatshirts, and boarded the bus for a long weary night of travel to deliver us to our destination: post-inauguration DC.
The last leg of our trip we took the metro into DC, crammed in amidst huge numbers of pink pussyhat-wearing ladies. We made it into DC about 2 hours before the main event started– already considerable numbers of people were there, milling around, finding spots from which to view the main stage where stars like Madonna and Ashley Judd would be giving their speeches.
Below was a scene of the crowd funneled into one of the side streets around 9:00am. And there were still far more people to come!
By the time the stage event started at 10 o’clock, people were sandwiched in like sardines for blocks. To use a Trumpism: IT WAS YUUUGE!!! We decided to pull back to the outer edges of the crowd to be able to breathe! Even still, more and more people were arriving:
A half million strong, it felt like we’d taken over DC. The feeling was intoxicating. Once it was realized there were too many people for the planned march route, people started filling side streets like this one in front of the Archives:
Because we were so exhausted and the crowds were overwhelming, we decided to take a break and patron the Smithsonian– which, in spite of Trump’s demands, stayed open for the pink pussyhats. (Shout out to the Smithsonian: YOU DA BOMB!!) As per usual, I snapped tons of pictures (although I unfortunately didn’t have my good Nikon with me).
Below, to the left is Australopithecus afarensis aka “Lucy”. In the middle is Homo erectus, and to the right, Homo neanderthalensis.
The oceanic exhibit. I especially enjoyed some of the examples of the whale ancestors, such as Basilosaurus.
To the left, a giant ammonite; to the right, a megalodon (with my mother standing in its jaws on the other side, lol).
A replica of a large male African elephant is now the centerpiece to the main hall of the museum. (The last time I’d visited, it had been the T-rex. Now sadly the T-rex has been relegated to a hall behind insect exhibit.)
To the left, the Hope Diamond. To the right, a gorgeous emerald necklace.
The dinosaur exhibit.
An Egyptian mummy.
A gavial (crocodilian) skeleton; a huge leatherback turtle; and a fox.
From left to right, top to bottom: a mandrill, a spider monkey, a proboscis monkey, a lemur, and a slender loris.
A family picture: human, gorilla, chimpanzee, and orangutan.
A kangaroo, and the monotremes, the echidna and duckbill platypus.
At the end of the day, after all the marching and chanting and sight-seeing, we headed back to the metro across from the Trump International Hotel, where marchers were leaving their protest posters as a message to DC.
It was an incredible experience and I’m glad we were there. Now, there are ongoing airport protests, and eventually there will be Science and LGBTQ marches, in which we’ll be attending and marching, loud, proud, and angry. For any of you who are angry, scared, or even just a little bit worried about the behaviors of the new administration, I highly recommend taking a part in peaceful activism. Write letters, make phone calls, attend marches, and just BE LOUD. ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤
#TheResistance #Indivisible
