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May 24, Day 12, Rolling Thunder Parade, Washington D.C.

Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII Rolling Thunder XXII

I’m up at 5:00 am to get ready for the parade. Departure time, a little before six. My friends from Roseburg, Richard and Liz Shaw showed up as we were riding out of the parking lot. They lined up in the back as we headed north to the Pentagon parking lot. Our group was led by Steve, Headdog again and he was told to line up quite a few rows from the front. There were a lot of people working there who were to make sure that NOBODY rode up to the front out of order. I told one guy that my bike needed to be at the front so as to not cause congestion with picture takers. He looked at me then at the bike and said, "Hey let this guy go up to the front"! I headed up to the front and the guy asked Terry if they were with me. Terry & Dee and Richard & Liz followed me up to the front as well!

It didn't take too long for Show & Tell to start and I must have handed out another 1500 business cards with this web site on it. Not to mention all the pictures too. England, Australia, Germany& France are just some of the countries that my web site will be viewed in. I finally had to go rest in the shade for a half hour or so. I kept getting drawn back to my bike for more question & answer sessions. I finally got tired of handing out one business card at a time and for every new crowd that showed up. I gave one person a couple dozen cards and asked them to pass them out for me. That worked pretty well.

They finally got the parade started at high noon. Where we were staged in the lot, we were able to leave an hour later at 1:00. In the past we left at 12:30 or so. This time we were farther away from the starting line-up. Also new this year, was the fact that they were letting 3 rows of bikes go at a time instead of only 2. Once we got out on the route and out of the bottle neck, it went pretty fast. We were done and parked in 20-25 minutes. I was surprised by how many people called me by name as I rode along the very crowded route. Terry & Dee told me that they heard my name called a LOT. They loved being able to see the reactions of the crowd as we went by. It was a very high point in the trip for a lot of us. They made Vince hang out in the back with the Schneider Freedom Truck and he was finally able to roll at about 2:30 or so. The parade was over at 3:15. It normally used to take 4 1/2 to 6 hours in the past.

When we got to the end of the route, our choice was either go straight to the freeway or go left to park on the grass, which is what we did. They followed me through the field to the exit where I started another line. By parking next to the exit, we didn't get boxed in by other bikes.

We went to the Wall and found our group ready to do the wall rubbings and place the poster below the name of Sgt. Ralph E. Roach; KIA 12-11-68. We did four rubbings for the family of Ralph that lives in Tennessee. After that we went to watch some more of the parade. Headdog called Vince and gave me the phone and Vince said he just started to roll and couldn't talk. We waited for the Freedom Truck to come by and we saw Vince in the front of two other trucks painted very cool too. Of course the Schneider Freedom Truck looked the best! We went across the now cleared street and went to Thunder Alley. It was so crowded it looked like cattle being pushed into the pen with the pen already full. I showed Terry & Dee how to go up along the back of all the tents to get to the other end first and there it was not as crowded. We got a burger at a BBQ booth (that’s all they had ready at the time) and then headed back to the bikes. We saw Marv & Connie and Dave & Brenda on their trikes waiting for a signal light. We said that we would see them back at the motel.

We were parked clear on the other side of the reflecting pool and had to walk all the way around it and we finally got to the bikes. Terry followed me and we found I-395 right away. We went right to our exit and pulled into the gas station. Shortly after we pulled in, Marv & Connie and Dave & Brenda pulled in too. They followed their GPS instructions and we still beat them back! After getting settled into the room, I got a call from Terry asking if I wanted to join them for dinner. We all walked across the street to go to pizza only to find out that it was a take-out place only. We went into a Mexican place to eat. It was so-so but not like Los Dos Amigo's back home in Roseburg. We walked back only to find out that the NASCAR Coca Cola 600 is in a rain delay. I am going to get ready for rain tomorrow morning as I plan to be on the road by 6:00 am. More news tomorrow when I figure out how I end up going back and how far I got...............

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