"Life is the great adventure ride. Twist the throttle hard."

July 25 – The night we arrived in DC

We walked down to the National Mall from the hotel. The White House is only 6 blocks or so from our hotel.  We’re going to take 2 days off from riding, unwind a bit, and see the city.

To me, the memorials are the most powerful part of touring Washington, and the Vietnam Memorial is always my first stop.  Seeing the Wall is a very moving experience. 

July 26 – In Washington

I gave Chris a day away from dad.  Maddy and Chris toured the Natural History Museum and Smithsonian while Sam and I walked around the city. 

The highlight of the afternoon for me was a pub Sam and I found.  Just stitting down, relaxing, and having a cold beer with Sam was great.  Later I got my directions messed up, and we ended up at the Kennedy Center, so we went in.  Nothing was going on, but it was fun to walk around inside.  As luck would have it, a show Wickedis playing tonight, so we bought tickets. It is the prequil to The Wizzard of OZ.  Maddy bought us dinner at the roof-top restaraunt at the Kennedy Center. 

We found out Chris does not like goat cheeze. I wish I had a picture of him when he tried it.  The musical was outstanding, and we’ll never look at the Wizzard of OZ movie the same way again.  (The Wicked Witch is actually the good guy). 

After the theater, we went to the Lincoln Memorial.  To stand under Lincoln’s statue and read his Gettysburg Address incribed on the wall is special. 

July 27

We were going to take a tour bus around town to various sites, but after looking into the cost for 4 people, it seemed cheaper to take a taxi between stops.  First, we walked to the “Crime and Punishment Museum” which is also used as the set on CSI.  It is just bast the Chineese district.

The Crime and Punishment museum was a very interesting stop.  Much of it a tribute to law enforcement.  They had a police-car driving simulator to show how hard it is to drive fast through traffic in a city.  Only one of the three of us made it through without crashing. 

Uschi, can you pick out your husband in this line-up? 

We walked down the block to see Ford’s Theater and across the street to the house where Lincoln died.  I remember being in that house in 1972 on a field trip to DC.  Unfortunately, it was closed.  Back then, they still had on display the blood-soaked pillow where Lincoln’s head rested.

After lunch at the Hard Rock, we took a taxi to the Air and Space Museum.  The 3-D movie about the Hubble space telescope is a must see.  The displays of space-craft, moon rocks, engines, and technology is great.  The need more displays about radio though.  Without radio, would we have made it to the moon?  I did learn something new… Did you know, back in 1957, America had not yet launched a rocket into orbit yet?

We then went to the Washington Monument to put up our tired feet, and watch the sun go down.

After dinner, we took a taxi to the Jefferson Memorial and the Roosevelt Memorial.  The night-view of the mall is great, and there are fewer tourists.  What are the odds we got the same taxi driver twice in a row?

That wrapped up our tour of Washington.  Thanks much to Madison for joing us in DC.  She’s a very fine young lady, and a real trooper putting up with us guys.  Like most Sonnenberg vacations, it was a lot of things crammed into too short of a time, but I think we all had a great time.

July 24 

We left Savannah early and rode up toward Charleston.  We took a break at the Frampton plantation.  It was a small post cival war plantation. 

We then rode up to Charlotte South Virginia and stopped at Patriot Point, an overlook of Fort Sumter.  There is a maratime museum with the aircraft carrier Yorktown and a submarine.  We toured both for a couple hours. The boys really like climbing through navy ships. 

In one room, we came across this old relic from America’s past — a flag with only 48 stars!  The boys and I were thrilled to see a piece of American history from way back in the 50s.   (Luv you mumsies)

Our last picture of the day is self-explanatory…

July 25 – Sout Carolina to Washington DC

We got up eary, and rode hard so we would get into DC in time to meet Chris’s Friend Maddy Lloyd.  Not many photo ops, as we were on the bikes for 9 hours.  We did stop at a Mexican place called “South of the Boarder”. It was the east-coast’s version of mexico.  Note the hamburders on the restaraunt roof…  We decided not to eat and rode on.

As we rode into DC, the hardest rain-storm of the trip hit us.  Traffic slowed to about 35 as even the cars had a hard time driving in it.  We got into DC around 5:00, and Maddy was alreay at the hotel.  All this luggage was taken off our bikes:

We picked up the bikes as the Harley shop with fresh oil, new tires on my bike, and the switch replaced.  Headed east along the golf coast.  To make good time, we took the Interstate East toward Orland where the boys want to go to Harry Potter Land.  Riding over the giant bridges that go over the rivers and bays of the coast was nice.  In Mobile, we stopped at the USS Alabama museum/memorial to tour the ship and a submarine. 

At the same location as the USS Alabama is a WWII submarine that we could walk through.   The boys had a good time climbing around inside the sub.  And no, no one climbed into the torpedo tube.

They also had a lot of aircraft on display, including an A-12 the predecessor to the SR-71.  We rode till dark, and took a break at sunset on a beach along the golf coast. 

July – 21  Florida Pan Handle

Florida is one very long state.  We entered it on the West end and Orlando was 300 miles away, and the Key West 800 miles.  We’ll hit key west next time…  We rode most of the day, taking a break for me to make a business call. 

Near Ocala, I saw a sign for a huge Antique mall, and decided it was time for a break so I turned into it.  Across its driveway was a 4″ deep sand burm.  I wobbled and almost layed it down, but made it through.  Anyone who ride bikes in sand knows, when the first bike wobbles a little, the next guy will do worse.  Chris hit it and over went the bike.  Nothing broken.  Chris said it’s OK to post this pic.

Tonight, the Florida sunset was awesome, and Sam’s got a great picture of it on his iPhone.

We made it into Orlando with storms looming.  We took a 15 minute break to let a lightning storm pass.  That radar-weather app is really nice.  Its remarkable that we made it all the way from Denver to Orlando without getting wet.  As the news is showing, its record hot out here, but while we ride, it’s not too bad.  We all desert and Baja ride and are used to the heat.  We take a break every 45-60 minutes, and when we get back on the bike, its refreshing to have the breeze again.  

Mom isn’t here so in the hotel, so tonight we watched the Dirty Harry DVD I brought.

July 22 – Universal Studios / Harry Potter Land

The boys spend the day at Universal Studio’s Harry Potter Land.  The got the day away from dad and I got to troll the antiqu shops.  The boys thought Harry Potter Land was great.  You’ll like the picture of their new Tee shirts comming up in a couple days.

Tonight, we’re all seeing an IMAX Harry Potter movie at midnight, and then after a late start tomorrow morning, we head north for the 1000 mile / three-day ride to Washington DC.

July 23 – Orlando riding north

After getting home from the Harry Potter 3D IMAX movie at 2:30am, we slept in and hit the road around 11:00am.  We rode all afternoon and didn’t play tourist at all.  We stopped in Daytona beach for lunch.  We’re in Savannah Georgia tonight getting a good night sleep for a long-day of riding north tomorrow.