Saturday, November 06, 2010

Rally Day and a Bike Date...

It's been a full month since I've disappeared from public life but I promise you I'm slowly getting back in the saddle. But more on that later.

I know by now this is old news but I've had the pictures for this post ready for a couple weeks now so hear it is. All of you already know about "Thee" Rally. Yep, that's right, the Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity and or Fear that happened on Saturday Oct 30th . We wouldn't have missed it for the world. We also knew that hundreds of thousands of other sane/fearful Americans also wouldn't miss it so what was our plan? Yep, we biked it.
These bikes have not seen the light of day in years. So of course our day began with some minor maintenance such as pumping up completely flat tires, a bit of tightening and oh yeah wiping off the layer of dust they had on them despite being covered. How did that happen?
We started our journey by biking down to Shirlington where we paused for a quick picture to prove at least we started the journey (at this point we weren't sure just how far our out of shape legs would get us).
The smiling Bear.
The smiling Bean and Bear. Erynne, I wore my Peeps hat in honor of you babe.
The Weenie Beenie!! Though I've never eaten there I'll still miss it.
Approaching Pentagon City. You can see the Air Force Memorial!
We finally make it to the Pentagon!
Okay, so after an encounter with a very cranky Pentagon Policeman we ended up here, on the side of the friggin highway. How's that you ask? Well apparently the Army Navy marathon was going on and we were denied being able to ride on the path around the Pentagon. "Which way do we go the" we asked the cranky policeman. "That way" he says pointing towards the highway on ramp. "How do we do that on BIKES" Bear asked him. What was his helpful answer? " Oh I wouldn't know that". Yeah, cops can be dicks. So off we went to traverse our way cross the country side by the highway, round the pentagon and across the GW Parkway. I mean no one does this, there's not even a Bum Path here. But you know what? It was actually a shorter route!
Yay! We made it to the bridge. Pause for a picture for proof!
Picture pause at the Jefferson.
Still having fun! Man the weather was absolutely PERFECT!
Finally made it to the heart of the Mall. See those people behind us? Guess where they are all walking to.
Rally! Rally! Rally!
It was NUTZ!!! We've NEVER seen so many people. We literally got STUCK in the crowd. Brian was holding on to my shirt cause if you didn't hang on to each other someone would slip inbetween you and within seconds you'd be lost. There were sooooo many people that Cell Phone Service went down. Yeah, that many people.
We had fun spotting all the people in costume. It was amazing to be apart of something so HUGE. There was no shouting, no shoving, no yelling or any uncivil behavior. It was almost eerie how quiet the crowd was as it filtered in through the streets and onto the Mall.
Where's Waldo? And Waldo, and Waldo...
Appears someone had something to say.
After the festivities we stopped for a street vendor (heartburn) Hot Dog and made the return trip home.
Yep, we took our off road short cut again!
We stopped for dinner in Shirlington then it was straight home for a nap. What a day, what a day.