For the group — as well as countless others from the Adirondacks — this electrifying weekend did not center around celebrating the inauguration of the New York City billionaire real estate tycoon Trump, though.

Rather, they caravanned to join in with the more than half a million people in the nation’s capital for the Women’s March on Washington — a historic event that crowd counting experts told the New York Times drew about three times the size of the audience at President Trump’s Friday inauguration.

Among the several hundred thousand, six of them attended the “Alternative Inauguration Party” at Lake Flower Landing late Friday night before hopping on a coach bus organized by the Adirondack-based political group Voters for Change.

At the party, just hours before the attendees hopped on the bus to Washington D.C., a man in the crowd jokingly asked, “Where is the souvenir table so I can get my red cap?” It was his way of poking fun at perhaps the most recognizable singular object of Trump’s campaign, his “Make America Great Again” baseball hats.

Jake Vennie-Vollrath, his wife Erin and their infant daughter Anya on the Voters for Change bus from Saranac Lake to Washington, D.C. Saturday for the Women’s March on Washington. (Photo provided)

The Women’s March on Washington, and dozens of others across the country including marches in Lewis and Plattsburgh, provided its own symbolic answer to Trump in the form of headgear. The marches were full of pink beanies with cat ears — “pussyhats.” Whether marchers purchased their own hats at the march events or downloaded patterns from the pussyhatproject.com website to knit, crochet or sew at home, the pink headgear became the unofficial uniform of the marches around the U.S.

On the Voters For Change coach bus that departed Saranac Lake just before midnight Friday night, dozens wore their own pussyhats, including Jake Vennie-Vollrath, his wife Erin and their infant daughter Anya.

Amid the sea of pink knit hats on the bus, there were still others like Claire Mach and Ellie Bronchetti of Massena, who wore Lady Liberty hats they created themselves. The hats read, simply, “Respect.”

Down in D.C., Saranac Lakers such as some members of the Lawn Chair Ladies were part of the march, as were faculty and students who travelled down from Paul Smith’s College.

The Enterprise’s News Editor Brittany Proulx made the eight-hour drive to Baltimore to meet her sister Tiffany Wolf, who flew in from Colorado Springs. The sisters and their friend Martha Hawkins-Sherrill of Chicago waited two and a half hours for the train into Washington, chatting with other women from across the country.

More than half a million women, men and children attend the Women’s March on Washington Saturday, including some Tri-Lakers. (Enterprise photo — Brittany Proulx)

“It was surreal, and even waiting for the train was part of the experience,” Proulx said. “People were singing and making signs and cheering each other on. I was prepared for a somewhat more aggressive environment, and instead, we were greeted with nothing but friendly faces and men, women and children just coming together in such an awesome way.”

PSC Professor of Jay Curtis Stager described scenes of jammed metro subways where the crowds were so dense in D.C. he and many others decided to walk to the Mall instead.

For Stager, attending the march was important to him as his father passed away just a few weeks ago. He carried photos of his father and mother with him as he marched, “so they could be with me there in spirit.

“It was a very emotional experience for me, not only because I was proud to accompany my wife Kary on this historic march but also because my parents came to this same spot half a century ago,” Stager said. “It was for the civil rights march on Washington at which Martin Luther King Jr. gave his ‘I Have A Dream’ speech.”

Alongside Stager, his wife was one of thousands of marchers who reveled in the opportunity to protest Trump’s derogatory comments toward women that surfaced during his campaign. She wore a New York state flag as a cape, a flag that features two women: Justice and Liberty.

Women sing as they make their way through the crowd of more than half a million at the Women’s March on Washington Saturday. (Enterprise photo — Brittany Proulx)

“The crowd of half a million was so large it jammed the entire route,” Stager said, “So there was technically no room on the official route to march on as planned.”

The D.C. march featured many other prideful protesting couples from the Tri-Lakes as well, including Shaun and Anna Kittle of Saranac Lake.

Adirondack Voters For Change shared the Kittles’ Facebook post, more than a dozen powerful snapshots of protestors from across the country who, together, made up a sea of pink pussyhats beneath handmade signs hoisted in the air.

One image, of a young African American woman standing to the left of The Capitol Building, read “I AM changing the things I cannot accept!” Another, a piece of colored-in cardboard held up by a young pussyhat wearing girl who sat on top of a loved one’s shoulders read “Cat Powers!”

A day after Trump was sworn-in, from the Adirondacks to The National Mall, millions of Americans spoke en masse.

A little girl sits on her father’s shoulders in front of the Washington Monument Saturday during the Women’s March. Her sign had an image of Wonder Woman and read “My girls will save the world!” (Enterprise photo — Brittany Proulx)

“It was peaceful, it was important, and it made a difference,” Shaun Kittle wrote of his experience at the D.C. march on Facebook. “Now we must take this positive energy, and the ideas born from it, and use it to bring people together —  even those who don’t agree with us on everything. We have a common enemy, and it is not each other. Let’s start talking about that.”

Locals also held smaller marches and demonstrations at Mount Van Hoevenberg, Tupper Lake and Plattsburgh.