That information arrived on the Thursday before our
departure and it informed us that we had to pick up our special passes at a
certain podium, no later than 45 minutes prior to the first flight’s
arrival. And, they advised us that we’d
need to leave extra time to clear normal security screening. Well ok, that doesn’t sound so bad. Let’s see…be at the podium no later than 45
minutes prior to the first flight. What
time is the first flight? D’oh! 7:22am!
So counting backwards, that means we have to be at the podium no later
than 6:37 in the morning. And we need to
leave extra time for the TSA checks. And
how long does it take to get to the airport?
(We were doing a lot of backward counting…)
We finally settled on the fact that to be safe, we’d need to
get up at 4am. What the? But we’re on vaca!! (Actually, I figured it’d be worth it just to
see K get up that early – she usually isn’t up much before noontime on the
weekends.)Needless to say the fact that we’d be getting up super early on Saturday morning weighed heavily on our minds while we were out and about on Friday night. HA! Who am I kidding – we stayed out just as late as we normally would. I believe we turned in around 2am, and man oh man, did that alarm go off way too soon…
But sure enough; the alarms went off and we were up, showered, and on the bikes headed to the airport in less than half an hour. Quite impressive for us! We got parked, grabbed a bit of grub from a DD’s inside the airport, and kicked back a bit while we stuff our bagels and donuts down our throat.
The sunrise is beautiful…even at the airport.
Keeping an eye on the clock, we finished up our meager
breakfast and headed off and found the podium…
…and there was nobody there.
There was a sign upon the podium saying “back at 6:15”. Ok, looks like we wait.
Waiting…
6:15 came and went.
6:20 came and went as well. As
did 6:25, 6:30, 6:35, 6:40 and 6:45.
This already put us beyond the 45-minute window the information had
cautioned us against, but finally the lady showed up and gave us our
passes. Quick! To the security screening so that we can get to
the terminal in time!
TSA gave us no problems, and vice-versa. We were through in no time and quickly found
our way to the appropriate terminal…half an hour before the flight was to
arrive.
No problem, we’ll just kick back in the bench seats and take
a little snoozer. Man, it sure is bright
in here, though. That’s ok, I’ll just
flip my sunglasses down and…crap. I
still had my clears with me from the dark ride in. Dangit!
Oh well, I wasn’t tired anyway.
Before too long, some folks who looked like they knew what
they were doing came along. They started
setting up band equipment and had us moving some of the bench seats off out of
the way. Then some folks in uniform
arrived, and there were flags set up, and more and more people began filling in
the terminal. Well allright! This is more like it!
This next pic was sent to me by a nice lady who we didn’t know,
but who snapped it and then approached and asked me if I’d like to have
it. I said sure and we exchanged numbers
and soon I had a buzzing phone indicating a text had arrived.
I’m not sure what I was saying to Artie…judging by the
dubious look on his face, though, I imagine it was something like “Trust me…”
At the schedule arrival time, an announcement was made that
the flight had landed and was taxiing over to the gate. They also announced that the airport had sent
out fire trucks to welcome the airplane with a water guard (I think that’s what
they called it). Sure enough, a quick
jaunt over to the window and I could see large jets of water being shot over
the plane.
Ok, so the walkway in the middle of the pic pretty much
blocks everything but if you click on and expand the pic, you can see what’s
going on in the background. Take my word
for it that there was a plane there as well.
Arrivals! The
veterans soon began appearing, welcomed by raucous cheering and clapping from
all of us in the crowd. Some seemed
quite taken aback by the attention, while others smiled widely with great
appreciation.
One of the active service members who was standing in the
greeting line had his two kids with him and they kept walking up with outstretched
arms to shake hands with the veterans, who really seemed to zero in on
this. So many of them, when they saw the
little tykes, went right up to them to say hello.
I didn’t realize it until just now but the pics I have are
all of veterans in their wheelchairs.
There was more than one veteran, though, who was rolled up to the door
in a wheelchair, but upon seeing the gathered throng, stopped and stood, then
walked proudly (albeit slowly and carefully) along the corridor through our
midst.
We all agreed wholeheartedly; despite having had to get up super early (and while on vaca!!), we would do this again in a heartbeat!
When the last of the veterans had cleared the terminal and
were off to their respective adventures, we headed for the exit, and the bikes
that were waiting for us.
Our next destination was the Law Enforcement Memorial. This memorial lists the names of all service
members lost in the line of duty. It was
quite sobering to see so many names listed.
After spending some time here it was time to find a place
for some lunch. Along the way, we
spotted this sign and well…it seemed appropriate to have a couple of our
members pose next to it.
After lunch, it was off to Arlington Cemetery. We usually only hit this once every few
years, but it was Artie’s first trip to Rolling Thunder and he’d never been to
Arlington, so of course we put it onto our itinerary.
Once inside, we meandered along the paved pathways for a
while…
then headed off to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in time
to see the changing of the guard. It
went off without a hitch, as usual.
Artie was recording the whole process and I thought “Not
that I want folks to make noise, but it would be pretty cool if Artie got to
see the guard step off the carpet and admonish the crowd.” No sooner had that thought occurred to me than
sure enough; the crowd (dispersing due to the guard change being complete) had
begun to make a bit of noise, and the guard stepped off the carpet and
commanded respect and silence from everyone present. I looked over at Artie – he’d caught the
whole thing on film. Nice!
I took a couple more pics of memorials and dedications
outside of the cemetery;
From there it was back to K’s house to relax and unwind a
bit before heading out for the evening.
In years past, “relax and unwind” would have meant a few beers out on
the back deck while bullsh*tting with each other. These days, though, it meant we all found a
comfy spot (bed or couch) to close our eyes for a bit and take a power nap.
Now all rested up, we showered and hit the bikes, pointing
our front tires toward Old Town, and our favorite watering hole therein; MURPHY’s!
K had done very well and had secured a center table for
us. We were in great spirits and couldn’t
wait for the night to get rolling!
Before too long the musician came out and he was…ok. As the night wore on, the crowd was…ok. And about halfway through the evening, we
realized…wait a minute…we’re the only ones in here on motorcycles. Where are all the Mass folks? Where are all the bikers? Everywhere we looked, it was townies and
hipsters. Oh no! Our beloved Murphy’s is no longer the Saturday
night hot spot for Massachusetts bikers!!
That didn’t prevent us from staying long into the
evening. We didn’t close it this time,
but came fairly close. I do believe we’ll
need to do some recon before heading down there next year, and will have to
find a different watering hole for our Saturday night excursion.
Back at the house, someone (I don’t recall who) thought it
would be a good idea to break out the moonshine. James had one of those skull shot glasses so
how could I resist partaking?
That was it for our Saturday night and we all soon turned
in.
The next morning, the Boston Boys headed off to breakfast at
the usual spot; the diner about a mile and a half from K’s house. Pretty straightforward, but good eats on a
Sunday morning.
When we returned to K’s I gathered up my stuff and said my
goodbyes to the folks. The Boys, I’d see
back home soon enough. James and K…well,
we’re hoping we’ll see them in Sept at the Shayne’s Run, but that’s not set in
stone at this time.
Just before I walked out, K said she had something for
me. She handed me a nicely wrapped box,
and inside was an engraved flask! Wow!!
How thoughtful! It
says Rolling Thunder, 10 years and counting…
Thanks KerryEllen!!!!
Heading out to the bike, I stowed the flask and geared
up. I’d decided to skip the official
Rolling Thunder run and get a head start on NC.
The plan was to catch up with Jan and Steve about an hour outside of the
city, and then shoot straight to their house in one shot.
It was 500 miles away.
The bike had been recently serviced, the sun was out and I had a full
belly.
It was time to ride…
Next up; The Smoky Mountains, where the greatest danger wasn’t
the Dragon, but rather; trying to keep up with a Devildog…
No comments:
Post a Comment