Early morning on Wednesday before Memorial Weekend, WS and 3 of his buddies hit the road on their bikes to ride to DC. Okay, they actually rode to Gettysburg, about an hour outside of DC, because that is where their hotel was. The hit several sections of rain, one of which the rain was so hard, and the spray from the tractor-trailers so thick, that vision was very limited. Being on a highway, that’s not good, so they stopped at an underpass to wait out the worst. Several other bikes were there waiting it out too. They left at 6 in the morning and got to Gettysburg about 6:30 that evening.
They took the next several days checking out sights that they haven’t seen before – mainly stuff from the civil war. There was a diorama of the surrounding area and the battle fought.
There were memorials out the ying-yang. He said that there were a massive amount of memorials that they never saw because the woods were full of them; off the road and only assessable by horse of 4 wheelers, or hiking a distance.
They also went into DC and visited several of the monuments to more recent wars (WW1, WW2, Korean and Vietnam. The reflecting pool is apparently being totally redone, so was closed. There is an Einstein statue near Thunder Alley (where all the vendors hawk items associated with the Rolling Thunder event, where the group of guys that WS went with meet up if they get separated. Of course they had to have their pics taken.
Then there was the Patriotic bike and the truck that started off the parade.
They started back home Tuesday morning, where WS stopped and took this fantastic picture of a barn and tree.
I rode to work that day even though there was a chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon (seems a little off topic, but bear with me). I left work shortly before 4 as I was watching the radar and there were storms roaring thru Vermont. I figured I would get home before the worst of the storms, which I did – I just got sprinkled and lightly rained on the last 7 miles. I could hear the thunder when I shut my bike down, so I hurried up and got it into the shed, then got the dogs into the house. Next, I turned on the news (it was shortly before 6 at that time) to see the radar.
The first thing I was greeted with was a tornado warning. Radar had detected a possible tormado in the Keene area, and the storm was on a vector to hit the Hillsboro area. Knowing that WS and the group should be coming thru the area around the time that the storm would hit, I decided to call WS. I left him a message (figuring that when they hit the NH border they would stop to take off helmets). The message indicated the tornado warning in Keene, that the storm was heading East and would hit Hillsboro in about 40 minutes. So, if they just set tight for about 30 minutes, they would ride in behind the activity.
About 10 minutes later I got a call from WS; he was down in Hillsboro and wanted to make sure the gate and shed were open when he got home. He beat the storm in; it was raining, but still fairly light. Shortly after he and his gear made it into the house, the heavens opened up and we got 2.5 inches of rain in 20 minutes. According to the news, they crossed thru Keene at the right time. Any later and they would have been back-tracking to get home as 9, 10, 12 and 12A washed out and were closed. Other roads in the area, completely disappeared. The only good news those residents had was that there was never an actual tornado spotted.
The driveway washed out in several spots, so WS spent the next day (which was still a vacation day) fixing it.
He must have done a good job as we have had another 6.5+ inches since then without any trouble (it has rained just about every day since then).
Anyway, he enjoyed his vacation with the guys, as much as I enjoyed my time alone.
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