First, let me give a little background on what Rolling Thunder is (keep in mind that you can find specific information if you look it up). I'm not sure what year it started, but I've heard that it started with maybe a few hundred motorcycles, and has grown to a few hundred thousand. The idea was to support POW/MIA efforts, showing that there are people who care and will stand up. The motorcycles pile up in the Pentagon parking lot and at noon, they ride around a specific (and sectioned off) route through DC.
This is the first time that I have been to Rolling Thunder. I had Linda on the back of the bike (pictured below) and we were with a group of nine bikes.
This first picture is me standing on a hill overlooking the sea of bikes in the Pentagon parking lot, staging for the ride. Linda and I went down into the edge of the crowd to get food, a T-shirt, and use the porta-potty. The line for food was long, but fast moving; the T-shirts were sold out except for XXXL, unless we wanted to pay $26; and the line for the johns were long and slow moving.
One of the guys in our group used to work for the Pentagon Police, so we had an "in" to cut near the front of the line when the procession started. This picture shows the line of law enforcement bikes that was parked right next to our "VIP" parking.
This is where we parked, and this is our group. If you look close, Linda is the furthest away in this picture, sitting in the grass.
Here's Kevin, the guy I mentioned before (he's super cool, btw). And I also managed to get the helicopter in this pic, which took off just before the ride started. That was pretty cool.
This is the very beginning of the ride. I don't have any mid-ride pictures though, because I was driving!
We rode around the city and it was amazing how many people were lining the streets just to wave and watch us go by. Btw, Linda's "job" for the procession was to wave to all the people as we passed, and she did it VERY well. :-) We ended up here, on the grass of a median, very near the Lincoln monument.
Here's a closer shot of where we were sitting. At one point, I ended up laying down under that tree and falling asleep to the sound of rumbling motorcycles. :-)
Here's the view down the street of the bikes that were coming toward where we were sitting. You can't see too much, but I think my favorites were the front half motorcycle/last half car and the old guy wearing a kilt that looked like he very well could have been Scottish.
Linda and I walked over to the Lincoln monument. This is a picture of Linda and the Washington monument, taken from the steps of the Lincoln monument.
Here's me standing in front of the Lincoln monument. Apparently I was in the hand-on-hip-pose mode today... Oh, and my tip for anyone visiting the monument on a hot day is to go into the book shop inside to the right, it's air conditioned. ;-)
So, after we rested a while (see above nap), we took off, back down to Virginia. Unfortunately with the roads being blocked off, and the traffic being bad, we ended up taking the rather scenic route through DC to get there. Oh well.
When we got back, Don and his wife Brenda, the two in the center of the next photo in black shirts, graciously hosted us with a very yummy bbq.
I wish I had gotten a better picture of Don's bike because he has a neat little side-car on it, but that's it in the background of this picture. And here's Linda visiting with one of the ladies that didn't go on the ride, but joined us for the bbq.
So, in the end it was good and I'm glad I went. Luckily it wasn't too hot and also luckily it didn't rain. I'm not sure I would want to go on that particular ride again, but I'll definitly be going on other motorcycle rides, hopefully that will allow the group to open up a bit more, instead of the constant stop-and-go.I almost forgot, my favorite part was riding the interstate on the way up to DC and we would go under the over-passes that were full of people, waving and happy to see us go by. That was pretty cool.
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