DC over memorial day

ependydad wrote:

dahkota wrote:
Just an FYI, the mosquitoes are already out and about. Much of DC used to be swamp land - there is a lot of standing water. Take bug spray. I am about 7 miles from the DC border right now and we have no stink bugs or gnats.

It will be the spring storm season - if it is really hot during the day, expect thunderstorms by 7:30 at night at least twice per week. They are brief but strong.

That's a pretty good assessment.

ford truck guy, where do you have reservations for? Cherry Hill?

dahkota, whereabouts are you staying?

Yes . . we have 3 spots at Cherry Hill.... arriving Friday noonish

DC on Memorial day weekend hosts Rolling Thunder. The City is closed to all vehicles except Motorcycles on Sunday for the Ride To The Wall, The Viet Nam Memorial, to honor and remember our unaccounted for POW's/ MIA's. Its a tradition for close to 30 yrs now. About half a million bikes and riders come from all over the country for this event. It's mostly ignored by the media, along with the Viet Nam Vets, but if your a veteran or Patriot it is a moving and memorable experience as 500,000 bikes with flags and Honor Guards cross the bridge and ride the loop around the Mall. It's the only Welcome Home Viet Nam vets ever got, we give it to each other, in DC, on Memorial day weekend.

This time of the year usually a well placed citranella candle or 2 will ward off the no-seeums. Given that we expect to have dry, cool and an light breeze I expect them to be managable. Come July is a whole different story all together.

As for rolling thunder, they do not close all of DC just some roads. I have never once had an issue getting in or out of DC, but avoid the area around the National Mall with a car. So only expect road closures on both sides of the mall. If you stick to K Street, 395, 695 and 295 you will not notice the traffic other then when the bikes all head their seperate ways once they leave the tidal Basin.

Rolling Thunder will meet up at the Pentagon North parking lot and then run the route from there. The route is from the Pentagon North Parking lot, up Washington Blvd and across the Memorial Bridge onto Constitution Ave eastbound to Pennsilvania Ave, they ride that to 3rd Street and South to Independance and finish up at West Potomac Park.

in previous years they have come across I-70 and down 270. don't know if it is the same this year.
bumpy

There are many meetup points (have several friends who ride rolling thunder every year.) Most of the meetup points are hosted by a Harley Davidson dealer in the metro area. Hd of Fredrick, Hagerstown, Fairfax, Dale City, you name it. Ontop of that you have the private groups meeting up and running as well, so you will see bikes on I70, I66, I270, I95, etc. But before they hit the official run route in DC, they all meet as stated above and the route run starts at noon.

now that I think of it that group of 42 brazillion motorcycles and accompanying patrol cars that time were coming down from flight 93 area to the DC area.
bumpy

ford truck guy, you missed a heck of a rainstorm last night. We had a monsoon and hail the size of marbles. Knocked out my power for 3 hours.

But the weather is supposed to be great all weekend. Have fun