A Portland Woman Drove Across the Country to March on Washington—and Was Met By Half a Million More

Cecelia Wenning, 36, drove her 2005 Subaru Outback by herself from Southeast Portland to Washington, D.C., to protest President Donald Trump on his new turf.

"Women have been doing this for 110 years—they've been trying to be heard," Wenning said. "The 7,000-mile round trip is my journey. I broke down, a trucker saved me. I found a hitchhiker, and a family who fed her. We shared a hotel room. I was able to make it because of those people along the way… I'm standing up for them because know there are people who can't come."

When she got to the National Mall, she was no longer alone.

The crowd is so large—500,000 people—that, as several wags have noted, the Women's March on Washington has run out of room to march.

Based on attendance alone, to say nothing of mood, it's clear that the Women's Marches around the country today are the true national event, not the eerily vacant presidential inauguration that took place yesterday. That goes double for Washington, D.C., where today's peaceful demonstration could not be more crowded, more upbeat or more emotionally resonant than yesterday's slow-motion shadow-play of horrors.

Democratic members of Oregon's Congressional delegation who boycotted yesterday's inauguration—including the state's sole female member of Congress, Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, who attended the ceremony—planned to join the march instead. Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury also flew cross-country to attend.

The crowds on the National Mall are so dense, and cellular service is overloaded, so photographic evidence of their participation will have to wait.

Crowd estimates as of noon put attendance at half a million people on the National Mall—double the number who showed up for Trump's inauguration yesterday. Protesters continued to stream in from Union Station throughout the morning. Flights from Portland to D.C. last night were full, according to protesters who were on board, such as local actor and writer Chris Warner, who flew with his wife and her "lesbian besties" to join the march.

This morning at 9 am, a group of several dozen Oregonians rendezvoused at the sculpture garden outside the National Museum of Art before melting into the vast elbow-to-elbow throng.

For Wenning and millions of others, the show of resistance is cathartic.

"After the election I lost my mind, essentially," she said. "The shock and depression became outrage."

Wenning found out about the Women's March through an ad on Craigslist seeking knitters and crocheters—for the pink pussy hats that constitute the marchers' uniform—and that was when she made up her mind to make the trip. Her boyfriend stayed behind in Portland to feed Wenning's two cats and will be attending the PDX march today, along with the expected 30,000 people concerned for their rights, welfare and survival in a Trump administration.