Washington DC Fri, Kiwi Mike

We’ve had a few lightweight days getting a feeling for the town and trying to get a grasp on where the bike needs to be and what my duties are.

Last night at dinner we hooked up with the president of Rolling Thunder Ted and his band of helpers and the Air Force bike builder Billy Lane’s family so we organized a trip into downtown DC to be tourist for today. DC is full of things to do and it is all extremely well presented. The Vietnam Wall Memorial, Korean War Memorial, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, WWII Memorial, Martin Luther King I have a dream speech spot. I found myself helping a Vet trying to put flowers in the flower hole but the hole was plugged. I pulled out my pocket knife and bent down to clean out the hole for him. He was extremely grateful of the help. It is hard to explain but it is very touching being around these guys and the memorials. It really is hard to explain and being around these guys and listening to their experiences is pretty incredible. These guys only tell the truth.

Carolyn flew into town late last night so we were able to share the experiences here in DC together. Unfortunately she got in very late last night as her United Airlines flight was cancelled and so was the connector flight and it rolled down hill from there. Dam airlines. If you set a flight and a time then that’s the way it should be.

The remainder of the day we spent at the Smithsonian museum, Air and Space museum and many others. DC is extremely rich in history and it is absolutely mind blowing. After a sweatie day in the humidity that we west coasters are not used to, we ended up in an Irish pub “Irish Four Courts” for a cool bruskie. My Irish mate Josh is still back in Cali so I had his one too. Their food is top notch no matter what they served up, bangers ‘n mash, chicken pot pie, shepherd’s pie and so on, it's all so good.

Several years ago a very close friend of mine James Clark suddenly passed away and his wife Gere’ asked me to get a picture of CG-1 and myself next to the Vietnam Wall. Last night the officials said it was no problem and it will happen. Tonight it seemed everyone passed the buck and it went nowhere. So my good friend Marilyn Stemp of IronWorks magazine and Greg knew what it meant to me to get this job done so they went down to the Wall and gave me a yell, come on down, NOW. I headed off on the bike with Greg’s careful instructions so as not to cock it up and get lost and they tell me how it’s going to go down. It’s tough to get anything done around this town with police, ride security, and thousands of people in attendance at the candle light vigil it really was super challenging. So when Marilyn and Greg see an angle and say let’s go, we are in like Flinn. We got the bike right next to the memorial wall and next to the soldier’s monument. I can now report to Gere’ that we have “mission accomplished”. I was sweating like crazy but I didn’t know if it was from the humidity or me really worrying so much about being busted as these cops are very serious. The dense crowd seemed to mask the bike and we escaped unscathered.

The Vietnam Memorial candle light vigil is very moving. It’s pretty emotional and and silent at the  appropriate times and it means so much to those that have served and many others of us who did not. Greg covered it very well so I will not duplicate.

Tomorrow will be a big day presenting the bike. I'm a bit nervious.