Memorial Weekend Day 3 (Sunday)

So as I mentioned in my previous day's post, we had an early day on Sunday. My mom's boyfriend, who had done the Rolling Thunder ride three years ago, had told us that we needed to be at the Pentagon parking lot early. The parking lot will only hold so many bikes, and I guess once the parking lot is filled up, they start lining up bikes on the highway, which is closed off to all other traffic. So we decided we wanted to try to leave the hotel between 7 and 7:30.

We got up early, got ready, and went down to load up the bikes for the day. By the time we got the bikes ready, it was 7, which is when the hotel starts serving breakfast on the weekends. So we went in to eat and get some much needed coffee before leaving. I had printed out directions from our hotel to the Pentagon before we left home on Friday, so looked at them to be sure we knew where we were going. I led out, and knew what exit the directions said I needed to take. The exit before the one the directions directed me to take said Pentagon, while the exit my directions said Pentagon City. I almost went ahead and exited at the one that said Pentagon, but decided to trust my directions. Big mistake. So while we were trying to figure out whether we wanted to get back on the highway and get off on the previous exit, a group of motorcycles came by and my mom's boyfriend led us to fall in behind them. Well, come to find out, they didn't know where they were going either. Hahahaha!! So we wasted about 45 minutes or so trying to figure out where we were going.

Quick side note here...thank goodness for the new autosave feature that Blogger has. My IE froze up on me and had to close my window, and I would have lost what I had written up to this point if not for that feature. OK...back to your regularly scheduled posting...

So while we were pulled off the road, a couple in a minivan came up, and we asked them directions to the Pentagon. They told us how to get there (with the assistance of their van's built-in GPS - man I gotta get one for my bike for situations such as this), and we made it in about 10 minutes after that. So we got to the North Parking Lot at the Pentagon and it was just a waiting game at that point.

We knew we were going to be waiting for a bit. We got there just a bit before 9 a.m., and my mom's boyfriend remembered the ride starting at 1 p.m. We found out a little later, though, that they were starting the ride at noon this year. That was good to hear. So we spent some time walking around checking out the vendor tents. There were food vendors, which was good to know for lunch, and other vendors as well. We got commemorative Rolling Thunder patches and pins. The hubby and I got patches and pins for our vests, and got pins for the kids' jackets. They were tickled about that. We put the pins on right away. After putting the pins on, I walked to a nearby tent to throw the plastic away, and she offered me a keychain. I asked how much they were, and she said they were free. I asked if I could get two for the kids, and she said of course. So I took a couple and stuck them in my pocket to surprise the kids with when we met them a little later. Then we walked around, found the Harley tent and signed up to get our HOG event pin to be mailed to us. We also found a tent where they were selling souvenir American flags with the Rolling Thunder XX information on them. We bought a couple to put on the bikes for the parade, and then walked up the hill by the bridge to get a better picture of the parking lot. That's where we met my mom and her boyfriend with the kids a few minutes later.

We got some pictures of the parking lot from the hill, and my mom and her boyfriend were going to walk to the bridge, and the kids wanted to go with them. The hubby and I decided to go on back down to the bikes to put the flags on. We found out soon that the boy was going to be popular that day with his T-shirt we had gotten at Steel Dreams here in Fayetteville. The front of it says "Tricycles are for Babies" and has a picture of a chopper on it. Folks just loved his shirt, and kept asking him if they could take his picture. He was so cute because he was kind of embarrassed about it, but was also gracious and let them take his picture. My mom told him he should start charging a dollar per picture. Hahahaha!! I told the hubby last night I wonder how many blogs or MySpace pages he'll be on after this weekend.

We ended up waiting there at the Pentagon for about four hours by the time we finally got to take off. They did start having people take off to start the parade around noon, but it took a while for them to get to where we were. Let me just tell you right now that I fully understand now why this organization is called Rolling Thunder. When the bikes started firing up and taking off, it really did pretty much sound like a constant thunder. WOW!

The ride around D.C. was great! The roads were closed to all traffic except the motorcycles for the parade. It was great! We basically had rule of the road, and the supporters lining the streets on both sides the entire way were awesome! They were waving and holding signs, and sometimes were close enough to slap hands as we rode slowly by.

The baby girl gave me a bit of a scare. We were all hot and tired, and the motion of riding lulls her to sleep anyway, hence the main reason we don't ride long distances on the motorcycles with the kids. At one point a couple came up beside me and let me know she was looking like she was falling asleep, so at that point I started looking for a place to stop. We were close to the end of the parade anyway, and we wanted to be sure we were able to get off within a decent walking distance of the Vietnam Memorial. So since I was in front of our little group (the hubby was behind me and my mom and her boyfriend were behind him), I found a place to pull off and park. We were actually in a nearly perfect spot, just behind the Lincoln Memorial. So we locked up the bikes and started walking toward the Vietnam Memorial.

When we got to The Wall, the kids and I sat on a bench in the shade while the others went down to see it. My hubby was on a specific mission for our friend who usually makes the ride but wasn't able to this year, so he visited that section for him. My mom and her boyfriend had some names they wanted to visit. I have visited The Wall before, and the kids are still a bit too young to understand it yet, so we took the opportunity to sit down and cool off. When the hubby came back up from The Wall, we went off in search of something cold to drink. We found a refreshment stand and got not only something to drink, but also some Italian Ice which was even better. So we found a shady spot to sit and enjoy our ice pops, and had a visit from a couple of friendly ducks. We enjoyed watching them for a bit, and the kids were fascinated.

After resting in the shade with our ice pops and drinks for a bit, we walked over to see the Lincoln Memorial. The kids had been wanting to see this as well. So we walked up and spent a bit of time up there. The view from there across the reflecting pool to the Washington Monument is just beautiful. The Washington Monument is one of my favorite landmarks in our Nation's Capital anyway. After we visited Lincoln, we went back to where my mom and her boyfriend were resting to go over to see the Korean War Memorial. This is another beautifully impressive memorial, and I enjoyed visiting it. Both the WWII and Korean War Memorials are new since the last time I was in D.C. in 1992, so I enjoyed getting to see them.

After seeing the Korean War Memorial, we walked back to the bikes to ride back to the hotel. It wasn't a far ride, but I was still concerned about A and how tired she was. So she was told to give me a signal from time to time to let me know she was awake behind me. I kept an eye on her in my mirrors, too, and would slap her legs to make sure she was awake if I couldn't see her eyes in my mirror. She had a tendency to sit straight behind me where I can't see her face, so I just wanted to be on the safe side. We made it back to the hotel safely. I was actually surprised that the traffic wasn't bad that evening leaving D.C.

The hubby and I went across to check out a shop called Total Wine after we got back to the hotel. We ended up buying some Coronas instead of wine. I just have a hard time paying the prices folks want to charge for good German or Italian wine here, knowing what I used to pay for it overseas. We're talking almost twice as much. Craziness. On our walk back to the hotel, we saw an Italian place where, upon talking to my mom and her boyfriend, we decided to have dinner. I don't think any of us were disappointed. It was delicious!

We went back to the hotel and to our separate rooms. The kids and I played another card game they had brought, Phase 10, for a while. I spent a lot of the time teaching them how to play, but we had fun. Then we all went to bed. We intended to sleep in a bit in the morning so we would be well rested for the ride home. It was a really good day. I don't think that the Rolling Thunder ride is something we will want to to every year, at least not the waiting around at the Pentagon for hours, but we're so glad we had the opportunity to participate this year. It was definitely a worthwhile experience.

Here are my pictures from Sunday: