Forced March

May 29, 2011
Fredericksburg VA & Washington DC
Day #17
This morning was a duplicate of yesterday, only hotter.  The campground is full and that wonderful early morning campground aroma of campfires and bacon is in the air.  It makes me hungry and does nothing for my Greek yogurt with fresh blueberries!


Now that we are 'experienced' Metro riders, the trip to our seat on the train went much faster.  We knew where to park, we knew how the ticket machine worked, we knew how to get the ticket into and out of the turnstiles, we even knew where we were going! 


Today was the Rolling Thunder Rally in Washington and many of the riders families and supporters were boarding the train at every stop.  When we reached the Mall area of the Capitol they were everywhere. They were staging at the Pentagon to ride in around the Capitol area, where many of the streets were blocked off.

 

We walked by the Washington Monument, to the WWII Memorial and then to the Vietnam Memorial.  As one might expect, it was extremely crowded, especially the Vietnam  Memorial which was one of the issues of the Rally and many of the bikers were Vietnam veterans.    

Jim at the WWII Memorial....remembering his dad.

Pretty funny actually.  I've never seen so many long, grey, greasy  pony tails and pig tails in one day in my life!  There were more than a few ZZ Top and Willie Nelson look alikes too.  I'd say about 99% of the motorcycles were Harleys...good thing because plenty of the riders certainly needed all the horsepower they could get just to carry these guys!

Police motorcycles began the parade

A little after noon the parade of cycles began and went on for hours.  We watched for an hour but needed to walk down toward the Capitol building.  Along the way we got  peek at the White House off in the distance.  We walked, and walked and walked. 

I mentioned that I'd like to see the Botanical Gardens, but only if it wasn't too far.  Jim looked at his visitors map. "Nope, not far."   Well, it WAS far and it was scorching hot.  My bursitis and I.T. band plagued hips were complaining loudly from two days of abuse...but we made it to the gardens.  Well, after an ice cream sandwich to 'keep my strength up'...



Gorgeous orchids



Hydrangea with floweres the size of soccer balls!

The garden was gorgeous,  not a brown leave in sight, spectacular plants.  *I* was the only wilted thing in there!  The problem with a botanical garden is that it's in a greenhouse, not a great place to cool off! 

They were setting up for the free concert at the end of the Mall that evening.  It was late afternoon, but I was so ready to leave that I wouldn't have stayed around even if Elvis had risen from the dead to perform!  We made our way back to the Metro station and joined all the other weary tourists on the train back to the end of the line, Franconia/Springfield station.

Tomorrow we are moving up the road to the north east side of the greater Washington area, near Annapolis, Maryland.