Storm Chasers

Day 5- May 20
South of Fredriksburg, Virginia
By: Rev

Last update was from a hotel, this time we are camped out in the hills of Virginia--seriously. We spent about half day in Gettysburg taking in the sites and sitting in a coffee shop due to rain. Then we had to make a quick exit because there was a cop looking at our bikes, ready to give us tickets for parking on the sidewalk. Harriet and Wilberforce(our bikes) would have none of that, so Viking moved them to a better location and then we took off to Washington D.C.
I have never been to D.C. before, so I was extremely looking forward to it. There was many sites I wanted to see, but most of all I was really looking forward to meeting with an anti-human trafficking organization: International Justice Mission (IJM).
As we were traveling to D.C. we came across a minor league baseball game, so we drove right up to the outer fence and looked through the fence and perceived an alright game between the Potomac Orioles and the Frederick Keys. I even found a baseball signed by the one and only great baseball player: Babe Ruth. Ask Viking about it.
For those of you who have traveled into D.C. know that the traffic is terrible. Well it certainly is extremely interesting when you have a Honda Ruckus flying through down town Washington D.C. But before then, we had the extremely nice privilege of meeting two people that many people don't like to meet on a regular basis: cops. We asked one for directions and he ended up being a Pastor as well, very nice and helpful man. Then the other one was because we decided to ride the shoulder to let some faster moving traffic go around us. As we were riding the shoulder, there was a cop parked in our way, so we moved back into traffic and low and behold his lights went flashing and he didn't look to happy. We still have no idea why he pulled us over, but we gave him a business card and told him what we were doing and we moved on without any ticket.
So D.C. The place that I have never been and wanted to get to for a long time. It was awesome seeing different memorials and monuments all while cruising around downtown. When we saw some sites and cruised around we decided to eat at subway. After that, our mission was to find somewhere to sleep. A very hard mission to do when you are in a huge city. Of course it started to downpour making it 4 days with 3 of those filled with rain. So we put on our rain gear and headed into a parking garage--debating whether or not we should sleep there, but decided it wouldn't be very good.
We ditched the parking garage and headed out into the great D.C. We found a park, but it said 'no camping'. After talking with a cop and having him say we better not stay in the city, we talked with a homeless woman to find the best place to camp, she gave us some wise advice, so we took the advice and moved on to Fletcher's Boat Landing along the Potomac River. It was rather a very nice place to camp I might say.
It wasn't a very restful night, but we managed to get some shut eye. We woke to many people biking. After packing up and rain proofing our gear, we headed to Arlington National Cemetery. This place was amazing for me to see. We saw other sites and then moved on around 2:00 after eating lunch at Iwo Jima memorial.
Cruising down to Richmond, VA was our next goal, but soon shattered when we realized that traffic was terrible. It was terrible traffic the whole time to just south of Fredericksburg--where we are now.
We needed to find a place to sleep and I suggested we go to the church we just passed and ask them if we could either stay inside or on their lawn. As I walked to the front door I opened it and immediately saw many people dressed up sitting around tables so I frantically shut the door and proceeded back outside to the parking lot. Most likely it was a dress rehearsal for wedding and most likely they didn't want to bother with two smelly bikers.
We saw signs for a KOA campground but didn't like the fact of spending $30 just to sleep. So we found an abandoned house. But I told Viking I didn't want to sleep there with the dead dear carcass, many shotgun shells, a family picture, and a conch and chair. So we decided to camp up on the hill which is awesome by the way. It is that time to go to bed though. Until next time!
Praise God and to Him be all the Glory, Honor and Praise!