Thank you, soldiers, for your selfless courage and dedication.
Our flag is flying. We remember, and our family is grateful.

Tikanis

I consider today the first official day of my summer vacation. And I plan on doing absolutey............nothing! Seriously, I just need a mental break. Going to curl up with a good book, a glass of mint iced tea and relax. Tomorrow is another day and my todo list can wait!

Hope everyone had a nice Memorial Day.

Marci

Hi Marci, Happy Summer! : ) Your plan for the day sounds absolutely wonderful! What are you reading?

I have payroll today, and that is always a bit hectic. Shouldn't be too bad though, as I am better prepared these days. Anyone who remembers my payroll day from 6 months ago is probably falling out of their chair about now, as I used to really have a time of it! But now, cool as a cucumber...

REI was having a big anniversary sale and I had a 20 % off coupon, so I treated myself to a paddling jacket and a wetsuit.

I hope that everyone enjoyed the holiday weekend.

Suzanne? Are you back yet?

Tikanis

How are you Tikanis?
Oh, fine, and you?
Just fine, thank you! Just stopped by for some stimulating conversation....

: (

Back from DC and all I can say is WOW! My head is still spinning! We had a very powerful and moving weekend. I know that Rolling Thunder sounds like a bike rally of the normal kind but let me tell you this was not.

We left NH on Thursday morning at 9am and headed for Philadelphia. Traffic wasn’t bad until we got into Hartford (which is always crazy). I must say that being a motorcycle driver made my being a passenger a bit unnerving! Mark is a great driver but I had no control back there and that was disconcerting at times. Just past Hartford we met up with a huge group of bikes (40+) heading to DC. At first it seemed like a good thing to be behind them but the like to ride the lines and were in the middle lane, 2 astride, with cars and truck trying to pass on the left and right. Not comfortable so we got off the highway to regroup. I don’t know why they ride the lines like that but it’s really not fair to people trying to pass. Back on the road we were passed many, many times by bikes rolling in the same directions. It was fun.

When we got to Philadelphia around 3pm we were pretty road weary. Our room was an absolute gorgeous sanctuary with a commanding view of the Ben Franklin Bridge and the mighty Delaware river. The room was gorgeously decorated in turquoise and brown and the sheets were soft cotton with down pillows……….ahhhhhhhh. I loved it! We walked along the Delaware and popped over to Old City to mill around. We did not see any of the sights there because we were tired and hungry. We ate in a nice place along the river and had a great dinner.

We headed out early to DC in the morning with a 3 hour drive ahead of us and we wanted to beat the holiday traffic. It was a grueling ride in but we made it. We checked into our hotel (another little sanctuary from the madness).
Saturday, we cruised around and did all the monuments. It was amazing. I have never been to DC except in passing. The monuments are truly amazing as is the way the city is laid out; it reminds me a lot of Paris only smaller. All of the monuments were powerful but I have to say that the Korean War Memorial was amazing. I would love to see it at night someday - it was really haunting. Iwo Jima was amazing too…they were all amazing. All the while we were visiting DC the air was filled with the sound of bikes rumbling everywhere like well, Rolling Thunder. It was really neat. I even got my horse fix watching the mounted police on their extra tall horses.
Sunday morning - the big day. We got up at 5:00 am to head over to the Pentagon parking lot which was the assembly area for the demonstration. We got over there at 6am and there were already hundreds and hundreds of bikes there! The procession order was on a first come first go basis. Nothing would start moving until noon so we had a long wait in the hot parking lot. We people watched, met new people and tried to keep cool with the bikes just kept coming and coming and coming, and when the Pentagon lot was full more bikes were directed to the other parking lot. It is estimated that about 6,000 participated in the demonstration and that Washington had about a million motorcycles over the weekend. Just before noon the an Air force jet flew over us! At noon the thunder started rolling and that just gave me chills. In about a half an hour we were on our way. We headed up a ramp that was lined with people waving flags, we started across the Memorial Bridge and at the beginning of the bridge there were a bunch of soldiers holding huge flags, once turned onto the bridge there were officers standing at full attention and saluting! We followed Constitution Avenue, around the Mall and down Independence Avenue to the Wall. There we were directed into a field by mounted police! Then we just watched all the thousands of others behind us come in. It was amazing.

I have to say that this organization, Rolling Thunder has done a great deal in the last 23 years to bring attention to the plight of our POW’s, MIA’s and Vet’s issues. I certainly will never forget this experience.
Left DC at 4am and got home late Monday afternoon and THANK GOD I took Tuesday off! I mowed all day long except for a couple of hours to get Sweet Pea out for her first drive. She did really well. It’s good she’s feeling well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbf3-T_JUek here she is driving.
I will post some video of DC on YouTube when I can.

Donna,the link was in last week's thread.

off to watch the video. Back tomorrow.

Tikanis

Have the whole fam damily coming up for the weekend so I will be busy. I want to finish planting my garden this weekend too. Should be fun.

I have a new computer and it's at the shop having all the stuff off my old computer moved on to it. I hope to have it back today. Anxious to start on the photos from the trip.

What is everyone doing this weekend? Heck, we haven't even heard about what you did last weekend! I miss you ALL

Garden planting AND entertaining! Sounds pretty ambitious considering the size of your garden, Suzanne! : )
(sounds FUN too!)

I got distracted and didn't watch the video of Sweet Pea yet, but I will after work today.

I will be kayaking all day tomorrow out in the marina, taking a skills class, trying out my new wetsuit in a size SMALL! Sunday there's church then gardening and some puttering around the house, Dodger game....

Not enough weekend in my week!

PLEASE check in, MIAs!

Tikanis

Going to a car show tonight. It's Chevy night and DH gets to park his '62 Nova in the featured row, so we are going early and staying late.

NHSuzanne - I must say that Sweet Pea looks gorgeous in the video. She is one pretty horse. And you are looking gorgeous as well! Sounds like you had a great time over the weekend. I rode from Erie to Pgh. once on the back of a motorcycle and I was tired after only a few hours.

Tikanis - Sounds like you do need more hours in the day-lol. Have you purchased your kayak yet?

Off to do some weeding, pick some strawberries and vacuum out the car before we head to the car show.