​Early on a Thursday morning a group of ladies left Wisconsin in a minivan. Our destination; Washington D.C., our mission; to make our voices heard at the women's march on Washington. 
Our hosts were the wonderful Marilyn and Joe of Washington DC. Joe at 86 has seen a lot of presidents come and go. His opinion on Trump? 'This one's the worst'. Marilyn knitted our lovely pink hats and lent us the use of her art studio for crafting our signs for the following morning.
Early the next morning we headed out to the subway, where and enormous crowd of fellow marchers was filling the station. Eventually we squished ourselves onto a train and found our way out on the other side. 
The atmosphere was utterly electric. It is hard to describe how uplifting it felt to be there with so many other like minded people. The speakers were excellent, women and men of  diverse backgrounds and experiences giving powerful and moving rallying cries. When it came time to start marching, the road was so packed it was difficult to move, but eventually we were able to march towards the Washington memorial. 
Overall it was an incredibly positive and peaceful protest. It wasn't until we got home and put the TV on that we got a full sense of how enormous the march had been. The Washington DC march is estimated to have had between 500,000 and 900,000 people, and other enormous marches were held all over the US. Internationally there were 670 sister marches for women's rights and peace. It was the largest protest in US (and possibly world) history. We were right there, in the epicentre of it all, and it's a memory I will treasure forever.

I took the train to Detroit to visit an old friend John, his wife Alexis and their new baby.  I really like Amtrak, the american trains are run very well. I loved beautiful Union station in Chicago. It is a beautiful architectural accomplishment from the gilded age. 

The train slid through the snowy country side and before I knew it I was in D-town. We had a great baby shower and my hosts took me on a great tour of the interesting sights of Detroit. We watched jazz in the Rivera room at the Detroit institute of arts, visited an Island on a lake overlooking the city (Belle Isle) with a conservatory built in 1905 and full of tropical plants, we went to a historic pottery studio and we crawled in the car past some old and beautiful mansions which are now being restored. Detroit has had some down times, Detroit is starting to blossom again, as a colourful and artistic city.