The night before the bus trip to New York City was a stormy one in Chicago. Outside the Art Institute of Chicago on Columbus Drive, four buses were scheduled to leave at 5PM on Saturday, August 28 to go to the mass protest against the Republican National Convention on Sunday in Manhattan. Around 4PM the buses were at the corner of Jackson and Columbus when a group of pro-war fanatics called the Protest Warriors confronted those of us who were about to leave for New York City. They carried various signs with some of those signs having swastikas on them and harassed left-wing activists until we had to walk north towards the intersection of Columbus and Monroe after being told to do so by the police even though we got there first. The Protest Warriors followed us down the sidewalk. We stood under some trees while it was raining and they stood in the rain holding up their wet signs that soon became warped. At 5:30PM the four buses left from downtown Chicago. Somewhere in Indiana one of the buses broke down and a replacement bus was sent out from Chicago, which added about an hour and a half to our journey. At 5:15AM on Sunday while bus number 68 was driving through Pennsylvania a semi that was ahead of it carrying cereal caught fire. The fire covered a somewhat large area of the road and the flames appeared to reach almost 40 feet into the air. Inside bus 68 we couldn't smell any smoke but the fire was a creepy thing to witness. We arrived at the Journal Square train station in New Jersey at 10:30AM Sunday morning. The train ride to Manhattan was uncomfortable because it was very hot inside. The assembly area for the march was many blocks in size and filled with thousands of people. It is estimated that roughly 500,000 people participated in this march. The march stepped off around noon and at some areas the crowd was very dense. The route took us up Seventh Avenue to Madison Square Garden where the Republican National Convention is scheduled to be held from August 30 to September 2. All varieties of left-wing activists were in the march including anarchists, socialists, communists and liberal Democrats. Outside Madison Square Garden some of the marchers stopped to show their dislike of the Republican Party while a group of Middle Eastern men waved Iraqi flags. Around the intersection of 34th Street and Broadway a riot happened in the early afternoon after the march was stopped by police. The march moved forward a little bit later against the police presence and arrests were made, glass bottles were thrown, many people cussed at the police, metal barriers came down and police on horseback carrying clubs charged towards the crowd at the side of the street. Fifteen arrests were made, three police officers were injured and it is unknown how many protesters were hurt. Later on the march started back up after police on motorcycles moved in. The Protest Warriors were less than 100 feet from the disturbances. Also around the same time a "green dragon" was burned in front of Madison Square Garden. Roughly 200 arrests were made on Sunday that were associated with the protest. Demonstrators were denied access to Central Park by Mayor Bloomberg for a political gathering however many people did converge on the Great Lawn in Central Park Sunday afternoon and it turned out to be a peaceful anti-war event with little police activity. Hundreds of protesters after being taken into custody have been detained in a warehouse at Pier 57. Many people in this detention center are experiencing unsanitary conditions, have been denied access to a lawyer and go without food and water for hours. This protest was larger than the demonstrations against the Democratic National Convention in 1968. The march ended around 5:30PM. The four buses from Chicago including bus number 68 left Journal Square station at 8PM on Sunday night and arrived in Chicago sometime around noon on Monday, August 30.